Well I had fun this weekend, but certainly nothing worth talking about because most of my time was spent in the "college-guy weekned slump..." actually come to think of it I did do interesting things but I won't write about them until later. Here's a story for my avid readers however: the history of Lego Civilization in the Midgett House:
I’ve always enjoyed being a problem solver. The reasons behind it are complicated. It’s almost as if, my thrill comes from the expression of creativity within the designing and problem-solving mode rather than from the actual completion of what I have done. I enjoy solving problems, especially if they involve something visual such as a device or design. I enjoy postulating and planning, building and adapting, but mostly I enjoy the challenge to continually make something better. I am a perfectionist. I can sit for hours building with legos just to figure out a more efficient way of doing something I can already do. I love to build and accomplish, and I like to continually adapt my project, often within construction, if I see a way to possibly make it better, more efficient, or miniaturized. For instance, in legos I discovered simplistic construction right away and quickly built bridges, walls, towers, and fortresses. I designed feudal technologies such as moveable gates that could still be as strong as the wall behind them and experimented until I found the best design. I then began to build Chariots and boats, finally settling upon weaponry and vastly improving them. The lego sets all included either small hand to hand weapons or long range weapons like cannons that did absolutely nothing—the force they exerted was so small. So I redesigned the weapons and created a working catapult model out of legos that flung large rocks up to 15 feet away. In lego dimensions this was a powerful weapon indeed, and although it did little against walls it was devastating to armies, units, and boats. Then I made a cannon that was 25 times as strong. I soon discovered that this new kind of cannon could destroy any gate, wall, or construction I had yet designed so I built stronger constructions such as my reinforced boats and rock fortresses. I even built a “Great Wall of China” which was impervious to my current weapons. But I was not satisfied. I perfected the cannon and catapult models until they could exert the strongest force possible with the current designs. I then abandoned the designs and made new ones. I quickly learned I could miniaturize the cannons or make them larger to exert more force, but all of my weapons still required force from me. So I redesigned yet again and created a larger, but more formidable cannon powered by rubber bands which would guide the force stored in tension down these near frictionless chutes. The bolts would then shoot out the end at about 3 or 4 times the speed of any other model. And I found that I could also shoot larger bolts increasing the damage factor of my cannons by about 10. My catapults I redesigned to have better balance and to shoot larger rocks and farther distances. These new models could destroy every wall and boat I had currently except for the Great Wall so I again redesigned all my structures. Previously they had been designed to be a generally strong structure, but the parts of construction were independently strong. I changed this so that all my new structures were designed to spread impact throughout the entire structure—eliminating the threat of any high-speed projectile that was not going too fast. The cannons still did a lot of damage, but they were now required to take multiple shots which gave the defenders a chance to retaliate with their own weapons which I built into the wall tops and structures. Boats changed from massive galleons to new armored steam models so as to deflect the new weaponry—and a new generation of lego ironclads was born. These were equipped with built in cannons of their own which were also designed to absorb shock and spread it through the boat, and so these new “lego fortresses” quickly become devastating. Impervious to nearly all weaponry they easily deflected cannon bolts and laid waste with their own weaponry to boats and shore-bound structures alike. When forced to encounter each other they would trade as much as 20 shots before a clear winner would emerge. At this stage I thought I might have finally attained equilibrium, but it was not to be so. Soon, two new types of weapons emerged—the shell and the artillery. The shell model started out as an experiment to see if I could make realistic-looking explosions out of lego pieces. I quickly discovered several models that not only exploded on impact, sending showers of lego shards in the air, they also did damage. And then I realized that my shells could replace the old rocks on the catapults. Although this new weapon did little to established forts or ironclads it was devastating to the standing armies and remaining sail-boats. While once an army had a chance against cannon weaponry, by spreading out and moving in with horse units to capture the cannon, they now had no chance at all. The catapults had but to place a shell in the middle of them and half the army would be blown apart. It took me about a day or two to design an attachment to let cannons launch shells as well. This gave the ironclads an even bigger advantage. Now, not only could they sit safely off-shore and deflect shots, they could shell the land and destroy any land-unit that yet existed. This all changed though with the creation of the artillery. Land-based fighters, now desperate to find a way to crush the ironclad, Created new, larger cannons that could shoot even larger bolts—some as big as a small ironclad. These large projectiles were inadvertently the undoing of every major structure yet created. After testing the weapons against the ironclad and discovering that not even the shock-resistant ironclad could deflect a well-placed bolt, I also discovered not nothing else could either. The Great Wall blew apart with almost a single shot. These new weapons were virtually the atom-bombs of my lego culture. They destroyed anything they shot at, even the best fortresses, and the construction of only one of them meant that a lego culture could become the new super-power. Under this new design, and the invention of planes with bombing capabilities, war ceased to exist because it was too costly. This harmony, however, was tentative. It only applied to the select few cultures which were advanced enough, and any uprising was quelled by a hammer stroke from planes, giant artillery bombardment, and ironclads. This advanced empire amused itself by blowing apart the smaller, primitive cultures it found springing up until it encountered a native culture that was actually able to match it. This culture did not have advanced weaponry, but soon learned how to build against it. They realized that the artillery, although nearly impossible to defend against could only destroy one thing at a time so they built a fleet of about 10 sailing boats and a culture of spread-out small bases. They also developed a new weapon I dubbed the giant crossbow which, although not as strong as an artillery was infinitely more accurate. The large projectiles were so big that they were also unwieldy and so the natives developed precision. With their giant crossbows they could easily hit a small, narrow target all the way across the room. So, when the raiders came again with an ironclad and cavalry to destroy them they had a surprise. Using muskets that they had acquired dealing with an opportunist they gave the impression that they were weak while still doing damage. When the more advanced units moved into range they opened fire. All 10 of the sailing vessels moved in to board the ironclad while the crossbows nailed down the incoming horsemen. In about 2 minutes all that was left was the ironclad which still managed to demolish the 10-boat fleet by ramming through it. The ironclad then opened fire on the natives, crippling one of the crossbows and destroying about half of the other structures. But the last crossbow had a surprise. Using a precision shot it nailed the artillery on-board the ironclad and disabled the weapon. The native vessels were then able to board and capture an ironclad. The natives then sent an envoy to demand peace in exchange for the vessel, but the empire refused. It considered itself immortal and sent every last vehicle it had including another ironclad, a steamboat with 2, on-board, giant artillery and another land army equipped with transport cars. They sent one of their primitive planes as well but it had little effect. But again the natives prevailed. They ambushed the troops again and the crossbows were able to destroy all but one horseman out of the approaching army. The large, captured ironclad proved to be a major asset and after a trade-out was able to sink the other ironclad. But not before disabling the giant artillery. These smashed through the on-shore forts and shot at the native ironclad, but the boat mounting was unsecure and these shots went wide. The natives then rammed the steamboat and knocked the giant artillery into the water. After the loss of these weapons the empire suffered another loss and was forced to deal with the new culture that so skillfully had captured all of their best weapons and technologies. These natives went on to change the war-torn industrial age into a modern one, and I was able to focus on more beautiful designs and architecture. One of the last weapons to be made was a new type of catapult that could fling its cargo across vast distances and was much better at resisting stress and therefore broke less times. My favorite test was where the catapult was able to fling a shell across half of the room while increasing the height of the projectile by about 5 feet. In other words it launched a rock that travelled about 2 miles without beginning to fall. This catapult was the start of my quest for excellence in machinery and my lego career turned toward mechanics. Through this experience and others in my life I have come to realize that my joy in problem-solving comes not from the actual solution. I love seeing something work, but the thrill for me comes from the pursuit itself—the image that I can always do better and do more.
(that was actually a journal entry for Engineering...we'll see how the proffessors like it!)
~DM
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
The days in which we bless and are blessed
well yesterday was quite awesome! Really one of the best ones yet...I really, really was on a high! When I first woke up the hot water was finally fixed and so instead of standing to the side feeling the ice cold water and shivering for 20 minutes and then finally forcing myself in for a 30-second shower I had a REAL shower. Ahh! It was luxurious! I just stood there for like 15 minutes seriously...I was probably even slower than Cara and that's saying something!
So after a lazy morning of showering I went back to my room to ready for my 7:45 class. It ended up that I had taken so long showering that I only had maybe 12 minutes so yeah...stupid me but oh well...I thought "I'll just skip breakfast" so I did and jogged on to my early class. That was when I realized that this morning was one of those mornings that my stomach does not agree with me. About 20 steps into my jog I realized that my stomach was growling like a rabid Tasmanian Devil on steroids! It wasn't quite as bad as my other days but it was bad enough. Glance at watch--8min--"nope no time" I thought and so I kept on...meeting up with several other friends. We then headed in to class where we proceeded to watch the rest of this really cool movie called contact. But not before I guilted everyone around me into giving me food...it was fun! All I have to do is mention that I'm hungry and some girl gives it to me. I think they find it fun to feed us or something. One night we were out directing hurricane victims to this shelter on campus. Except no one came down our road the whole 3 hours we were working. So instead we pulled up a truck and rocked out with a little music and flashing lights. Within the first hour 2 girls came over to join us and as soon as they found out we were hungry they went and made us dinner! I was pretty impressed...I mean it wasn't anything fancy but it was really nice of them...then the guys brought out donuts to rward us...apparently most of the other volunteers had abandoned their posts and good 'ol us were on the faithful list...so anyway...back to class...Mr. Bradshaw rocks! The movie was cool because it was professional but actually focused on God. The theme was how nothing in life can be proved...not even science therefore we must all accept something on faith...and God is the best! Amazing movie! I loved it so much! After that I went to Calc II again and ended up learning how to find the length of any line using the integral...pretty easy...then we took a test on solids which was also incredibly easy...and I was off to chapel!
Chapel breezed by and I had a fun time in it...it actually ended up ending so early that I got to hang with my friends for half an hour before Chemistry and on the day went...all positive besides Chemistry which persists in explaining to us for like th 5th time how significant figures work and what an atom is...ughhh! I spent most of that class trying to figure out how to handle my stuffy nose without anyone in the room noticing...I failed pretty miserably...stupid cold or allergies or whatever they are! It was all I could do not to let my stupid nose run all over my desk...where's a decent tissue when you need one?
After that came engineering lab where we got to take apart a drill and figure out how it worked Yes! That was so much fun...esp. because I was able to get how it all worked easily...I think I could build one if I learned a little bit more about how electricity is converted to kinetic energy in a motor...they sortof skipped that part...b ut yeah amazing day overall. After school I finished CHemistry homework while writing my latest poem and listening to "elevate" about 3 or 4 times all the way through...I hate online homework programs...they are so dumb because they don't accept variated answers...you get it wrong if you don't answer their way...(sigh)
But it was great. I met a bunch of new people and was pretty much smiling and singing all day wherever I walked. about 7 oclock I broke into the locked chapel (they foolishly left one of the 25 doors open) and yes I tried pretty much every one before I found it...Then I just sat in the middle of this enormous auditorium and just sang to God...speaking what I felt and phrases that came to my mind...praying and praising...it was an amazing moment just me and God in this huge quiet space where my voice echoed up and up...I left about twice as happy as before and then hung out in the girls' dorm (Fanning) for like 2 hours because it was one of the rare open dorm days...I had a lot of fun playing volleyball, apples to apples, and just talking...and they fed me again...seriously they must be trying to get rid of their food...lol...maybe they're scared they'll eat it and get fat or something...anyway after waiting for like 1/2 hour for Sheridan and Anna to leave and take me to the worship night hosted by Sanctuary...I finally amused myself by jumping up and grabbing the edge of the second story with my fingertips...I then pulled my body up with them and climbed this mesh railing at the top while dangling...it was really fun and not at all an easy climb...i did the entire thing with just my fingertips because their was no place for feet or hands...when I got to the top and turned around I discovered I had a crowd of cheering girls...not at all what I intended but hey! Perfectly fine with me...I jumped back down using the 10 foot lip as a swing drop onto the concrete and then I amused myself by sliding around the entire lobby on a swivel chair...those things are so cool! Finally we got to go to the worship night and had a blast...after singing my voicebox out and onto the ground and pretty much destroying my voice I got back to find starbucks open for "free" night and so I went twice and got as much as I could get...fun, fun! On top of it all I actually got to bed at a decent time and got to sleep in majorly!
~Danno
So after a lazy morning of showering I went back to my room to ready for my 7:45 class. It ended up that I had taken so long showering that I only had maybe 12 minutes so yeah...stupid me but oh well...I thought "I'll just skip breakfast" so I did and jogged on to my early class. That was when I realized that this morning was one of those mornings that my stomach does not agree with me. About 20 steps into my jog I realized that my stomach was growling like a rabid Tasmanian Devil on steroids! It wasn't quite as bad as my other days but it was bad enough. Glance at watch--8min--"nope no time" I thought and so I kept on...meeting up with several other friends. We then headed in to class where we proceeded to watch the rest of this really cool movie called contact. But not before I guilted everyone around me into giving me food...it was fun! All I have to do is mention that I'm hungry and some girl gives it to me. I think they find it fun to feed us or something. One night we were out directing hurricane victims to this shelter on campus. Except no one came down our road the whole 3 hours we were working. So instead we pulled up a truck and rocked out with a little music and flashing lights. Within the first hour 2 girls came over to join us and as soon as they found out we were hungry they went and made us dinner! I was pretty impressed...I mean it wasn't anything fancy but it was really nice of them...then the guys brought out donuts to rward us...apparently most of the other volunteers had abandoned their posts and good 'ol us were on the faithful list...so anyway...back to class...Mr. Bradshaw rocks! The movie was cool because it was professional but actually focused on God. The theme was how nothing in life can be proved...not even science therefore we must all accept something on faith...and God is the best! Amazing movie! I loved it so much! After that I went to Calc II again and ended up learning how to find the length of any line using the integral...pretty easy...then we took a test on solids which was also incredibly easy...and I was off to chapel!
Chapel breezed by and I had a fun time in it...it actually ended up ending so early that I got to hang with my friends for half an hour before Chemistry and on the day went...all positive besides Chemistry which persists in explaining to us for like th 5th time how significant figures work and what an atom is...ughhh! I spent most of that class trying to figure out how to handle my stuffy nose without anyone in the room noticing...I failed pretty miserably...stupid cold or allergies or whatever they are! It was all I could do not to let my stupid nose run all over my desk...where's a decent tissue when you need one?
After that came engineering lab where we got to take apart a drill and figure out how it worked Yes! That was so much fun...esp. because I was able to get how it all worked easily...I think I could build one if I learned a little bit more about how electricity is converted to kinetic energy in a motor...they sortof skipped that part...b ut yeah amazing day overall. After school I finished CHemistry homework while writing my latest poem and listening to "elevate" about 3 or 4 times all the way through...I hate online homework programs...they are so dumb because they don't accept variated answers...you get it wrong if you don't answer their way...(sigh)
But it was great. I met a bunch of new people and was pretty much smiling and singing all day wherever I walked. about 7 oclock I broke into the locked chapel (they foolishly left one of the 25 doors open) and yes I tried pretty much every one before I found it...Then I just sat in the middle of this enormous auditorium and just sang to God...speaking what I felt and phrases that came to my mind...praying and praising...it was an amazing moment just me and God in this huge quiet space where my voice echoed up and up...I left about twice as happy as before and then hung out in the girls' dorm (Fanning) for like 2 hours because it was one of the rare open dorm days...I had a lot of fun playing volleyball, apples to apples, and just talking...and they fed me again...seriously they must be trying to get rid of their food...lol...maybe they're scared they'll eat it and get fat or something...anyway after waiting for like 1/2 hour for Sheridan and Anna to leave and take me to the worship night hosted by Sanctuary...I finally amused myself by jumping up and grabbing the edge of the second story with my fingertips...I then pulled my body up with them and climbed this mesh railing at the top while dangling...it was really fun and not at all an easy climb...i did the entire thing with just my fingertips because their was no place for feet or hands...when I got to the top and turned around I discovered I had a crowd of cheering girls...not at all what I intended but hey! Perfectly fine with me...I jumped back down using the 10 foot lip as a swing drop onto the concrete and then I amused myself by sliding around the entire lobby on a swivel chair...those things are so cool! Finally we got to go to the worship night and had a blast...after singing my voicebox out and onto the ground and pretty much destroying my voice I got back to find starbucks open for "free" night and so I went twice and got as much as I could get...fun, fun! On top of it all I actually got to bed at a decent time and got to sleep in majorly!
~Danno
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
A reflection on the past
Tonight I'd like to share with you a wonderful story from the night before I left for Lipscomb. I've only sent it to one person I think...in fact I had almost forgotten it with all the things that happen with God and school lately, but it was a wonderful night...and a classic story from my life. After re-reading it I just had to post it here!
"Well...that was a traumatic night...God had me do something new and I wasn't too good at it...still I was brave and when I prayed about it later God told me that I did good...I just wish I had thought of more to say! All I could think of was "God loves you" but that IS the most important...it's just hard since I didn't see whether or not I had any effect...I know what I did was nothing less than blessing yet he practically seemed ready to kick me out...and maybe that was just a test on God's part...it definately couldn't hurt in my neighborhood and if so I passed it with flying colors...still doesn't make me feel awesome though...First of all God led me to just walk and praise and eventually I made it through the woods and back onto the road...but every direction I turned to walk seemed to be wrong in my heart...until I started walking into this person's yard. At first I was sure that God would have me pray for that house but he didn't he just led me on around to their back driveway and to this big house-trailer I didn't know was there and he just had me pray for it forever...I went practically all the way around it praying in about 5 places which felt right...At first it was general...on my second stop I felt that there was a person behind the wall and that God wanted them to gather their strength...strip away the shackles of obedience and learned helplessness and just show their strength and talents to others and to God. Then again I stopped and prayed a general specific for another person or maybe the whole van...I'm not sure...finally I stopped on the corner and prayed specifically for a person and then for the van and people in general...this time in tongues and then in tongues while singing...it felt almost done, but I felt like God wanted one more thing...then as I passed the last corner God stopped me...he had me lay my hands on the van and just speak out in its future...I just felt the urge from God to speak over the people in there and I spoke for their future...in the future I saw a light for them...where they would finally meet God after much pain and suffering...I felt that right now their eyes were glazed and they felt meaningless and hopeless, but that in the future they would finally find my creator and I prayed it out loud over them..."Later in life they will find you and they will be given the joy at last...they will shout for joy at their restoration and weep for those years that they wasted...those days spent in the fog of the world...they will rejoice and cry...crying for what they have done...and you will call them to you..." and then I felt I could finally leave the van...then I had the house...walking home I felt my joy surge and I began singing again but almost as suddenly it twinged...and I turned until I saw the house...the next one God wanted me to pray for...and it had a light on so I did...wringing my hands around the stop sign I prayed for them...against the apathy in their christian lives and the distractions that were making their lives unattractive...I prayed against it and begged God to show them just once the truth of his love...the great joy that they as christians were missing out on...they knew God and yet they didn't...they knew God and yet they were blind to him personally...and I just kept praying God would twinge my heart whenever I started to leave and so I stood there crying and laughing for them and praying in tongues again...my words rising with the sobs and laughter in a wonderful undulating murmur...and I was done...but not...I felt I little twinge...very small but anything from God isn't...I looked at the house and knew God wanted more...prayed I could give more and then it came...the thought of me ringing the doorbell and speaking to them...and God's joy surged on it so I started to walk up...all the time my heart began to pound harder and harder...hammering...I saw several large vehicles and began imagining a ton of people I never knew and what I would have to say when they saw I had rung the doorbell...finally I got there but the joy had faded replaced by a hammering nervousness...this was crazy...I didn't know these people and it was midnight...whatever would I say...so I sat down...calmed myself and just prayed solemnly...how I knew sometimes we as people can mean more and for God to please confirm this...should I pray up close or actually ring the doorbell...well wad'ya know? "Ring the doorbell" God says...oh boy...as I walked up the steps I saw the sign on the door..."NO SOLICITING" well great! These people hated people who went door to door too! Everything was going wrong and now at midnight some freak rings the doorbell...but I did it...in my heart I said to God...if I miss, I miss...I'll take the embarrassment on the off chance it isn't you because I am willing to be wrong just to be right sometimes..."ring" and a man's voice in the house yells "Don't get IT!!!" I was like oh great so I just waited and waited and then the steps approached...the guy slowly cracked the door...didn't even really open it and so I'm staring at this face through a crack in a rib-cage iron outer door...man I felt like such an intruder but I said...good evening...I ummm saw your light on and I just felt that God wants you to know how much he loves you...the man says: "Well that's all good and well but not at midnight..." and I said..."yes I know but I just felt like God really wanted you to feel and know that he loves you tonight..." and the guy said thanks quickly and shut the door...I left feeling like a failure...no crying...no breakthrough in someone's life...but oh well...I know it was God and he has the plan...we can't all win but we can start planting the seed...I trust that my words did something otherwise God would not have insisted...and yet even if it was a test...well all the more reason for me not to fail...it was just so scary though...I mean not that much because I'm much better at those things but just the totally negative reaction...well not completely...the second time I moved to the side so I could see his face and at first he was grumpy...he couldn't understand why God would send him someone at midnight...but when I said it a second time he paused...not long but his eyes told the story...I don't know if it blessed him but he got it...he got that I loved him and that God did too and although he still shut the door quickly my "senses" told me that all the tension had faded...when he closed that door I was at least less of an intruder than I had been if I hadn't repeated it again...but oh well...it still didn't feel like a success...the guy was more awkward and confused but hopefully he will dwell on it...afterward all these wonderful words came to mind for me to say when I was there...things about God not being far away but close...about his amazing love and about the sense I had gotten of what the problem was outside...maybe if I had given him that he would have softened and been touched more...and maybe it would have annoyed him to hear a long speel...in my heart I knew the guy was tired of what was rehearsed...he had the sign on the door...he wanted heart and although he didn't know it that was what he wanted...and what he got...I'll never know if I could have done better but I feel that I could have...and I was just telling God how I failed but...well I knew it wasn't true...it felt true even in my heart but God gave me peace and when I prayed whether I had done well the answer was a gentle yes..."
quite awesome! My fondest moments with God always seem to come from me trying to love, pray, or serve others. This was one of the nights where God had me pray "in depth" with those insights and "senses" that he can give us...A wonderful experience that I've found he gives whenever we pursue it! I love loving so much that it pains my heart to see how violent the real world is...I just want to be out in God's love and heal all that violence...to soak it up in myself just to see it go...but alas...the job is much too big. But God has me help others in my own way and in the night his presence will often guide me to pray over houses or pray things I feel about the sleeping people around me. Or sometimes I'll just walk with him! Here is a narrative I wrote when I got caught out in a freak thunderstorm one night...I love getting soaked spontaneously!
THE EARTH IS WATERED BY AN ORCHESTRA:
Rain streaks down from a darkened sky. A caress and breath from my God, and a gentle, rhythmic pounding, softly falling like chimes upon the leaves. The lines of water descend from the heavens in undulating waves--Like breakers pounding against the shore of existence. The drops--they splatter on my face and skin--a light smattering of water that moistens me with its gentle breath. And as I lift my face to the rain, I see waves of droplets swirling down in a steadily increasing deluge, reflecting the shifting tempo of God's song. The rain patters down harder, like Bongo drums ululating through an African forest. A flash of God's strobe lights brightens the horizon in anticipation of what is to come...and then...a gentle rumble of thunder...God's clash of Chinese symbols. The rain comes down...down...first in gentle waves, as the droplets dance over God's world of drums, then harder and faster as if the world cries out for more of God's soft touch. As each droplet falls it adds its own accent to the melody--each unique sound combining to build the gentle song of God's rainfall orchestra. A line of livid light crackles down to settle with a flash on the earth below, and a breath of wind settles over creation, carrying with it the swirl and swish of a thousand softly falling snows. And the rain pounds the earth with mystery, its spray awash over creation. Tendrils of the mist touch against me...like the inquisitive stalks of fern leaves...uncurling and brushing against my face and hands. Thunder rumbles like a gong, reverberating through the whiteness of moisture hanging thick within the air, and the sound slithers--like melted butter--through the hanging mists. The rain falls in large, fat droplets--hard and fast--a splattering of stronger chords played upon the wood and ground of the world--God's guitar...And as if the heavens suddenly opened, the rain swirls down in a swift pirouette like the wash and play of the northern lights upon a shifting sky...thunder and lightning crackles through the air producing an undertone of strong bass chords, synced to the pulsing of far-off disco lights upon the horizon. Lines of bright light flash downward, strong and fast, like the quick, clean strokes of a surgeon's knife, leaving smoky trails behind them...and just like that...the rain fades...like the mist...evaporating gently into the air and distance as the light stutters upon the horizon...a camera's shutter opening and closing to capture its last pictures of the wet world left behind...I hear the clash of symbols...faintly and far away, and then all that remains is the gentle swell and wash of the sea as it fades into the distance...and the earth gurgles in merriment...as I walk, I hear the droplets from the trees singing happily against blades of grass and the gutters rushing to play with God's gift of moisture...and the earth is watered...
~Live in love as love in God! Love to live and live with me! Love with me and we shall see--all the wonders that unfold! ~Dan E. Midgett III
"Well...that was a traumatic night...God had me do something new and I wasn't too good at it...still I was brave and when I prayed about it later God told me that I did good...I just wish I had thought of more to say! All I could think of was "God loves you" but that IS the most important...it's just hard since I didn't see whether or not I had any effect...I know what I did was nothing less than blessing yet he practically seemed ready to kick me out...and maybe that was just a test on God's part...it definately couldn't hurt in my neighborhood and if so I passed it with flying colors...still doesn't make me feel awesome though...First of all God led me to just walk and praise and eventually I made it through the woods and back onto the road...but every direction I turned to walk seemed to be wrong in my heart...until I started walking into this person's yard. At first I was sure that God would have me pray for that house but he didn't he just led me on around to their back driveway and to this big house-trailer I didn't know was there and he just had me pray for it forever...I went practically all the way around it praying in about 5 places which felt right...At first it was general...on my second stop I felt that there was a person behind the wall and that God wanted them to gather their strength...strip away the shackles of obedience and learned helplessness and just show their strength and talents to others and to God. Then again I stopped and prayed a general specific for another person or maybe the whole van...I'm not sure...finally I stopped on the corner and prayed specifically for a person and then for the van and people in general...this time in tongues and then in tongues while singing...it felt almost done, but I felt like God wanted one more thing...then as I passed the last corner God stopped me...he had me lay my hands on the van and just speak out in its future...I just felt the urge from God to speak over the people in there and I spoke for their future...in the future I saw a light for them...where they would finally meet God after much pain and suffering...I felt that right now their eyes were glazed and they felt meaningless and hopeless, but that in the future they would finally find my creator and I prayed it out loud over them..."Later in life they will find you and they will be given the joy at last...they will shout for joy at their restoration and weep for those years that they wasted...those days spent in the fog of the world...they will rejoice and cry...crying for what they have done...and you will call them to you..." and then I felt I could finally leave the van...then I had the house...walking home I felt my joy surge and I began singing again but almost as suddenly it twinged...and I turned until I saw the house...the next one God wanted me to pray for...and it had a light on so I did...wringing my hands around the stop sign I prayed for them...against the apathy in their christian lives and the distractions that were making their lives unattractive...I prayed against it and begged God to show them just once the truth of his love...the great joy that they as christians were missing out on...they knew God and yet they didn't...they knew God and yet they were blind to him personally...and I just kept praying God would twinge my heart whenever I started to leave and so I stood there crying and laughing for them and praying in tongues again...my words rising with the sobs and laughter in a wonderful undulating murmur...and I was done...but not...I felt I little twinge...very small but anything from God isn't...I looked at the house and knew God wanted more...prayed I could give more and then it came...the thought of me ringing the doorbell and speaking to them...and God's joy surged on it so I started to walk up...all the time my heart began to pound harder and harder...hammering...I saw several large vehicles and began imagining a ton of people I never knew and what I would have to say when they saw I had rung the doorbell...finally I got there but the joy had faded replaced by a hammering nervousness...this was crazy...I didn't know these people and it was midnight...whatever would I say...so I sat down...calmed myself and just prayed solemnly...how I knew sometimes we as people can mean more and for God to please confirm this...should I pray up close or actually ring the doorbell...well wad'ya know? "Ring the doorbell" God says...oh boy...as I walked up the steps I saw the sign on the door..."NO SOLICITING" well great! These people hated people who went door to door too! Everything was going wrong and now at midnight some freak rings the doorbell...but I did it...in my heart I said to God...if I miss, I miss...I'll take the embarrassment on the off chance it isn't you because I am willing to be wrong just to be right sometimes..."ring" and a man's voice in the house yells "Don't get IT!!!" I was like oh great so I just waited and waited and then the steps approached...the guy slowly cracked the door...didn't even really open it and so I'm staring at this face through a crack in a rib-cage iron outer door...man I felt like such an intruder but I said...good evening...I ummm saw your light on and I just felt that God wants you to know how much he loves you...the man says: "Well that's all good and well but not at midnight..." and I said..."yes I know but I just felt like God really wanted you to feel and know that he loves you tonight..." and the guy said thanks quickly and shut the door...I left feeling like a failure...no crying...no breakthrough in someone's life...but oh well...I know it was God and he has the plan...we can't all win but we can start planting the seed...I trust that my words did something otherwise God would not have insisted...and yet even if it was a test...well all the more reason for me not to fail...it was just so scary though...I mean not that much because I'm much better at those things but just the totally negative reaction...well not completely...the second time I moved to the side so I could see his face and at first he was grumpy...he couldn't understand why God would send him someone at midnight...but when I said it a second time he paused...not long but his eyes told the story...I don't know if it blessed him but he got it...he got that I loved him and that God did too and although he still shut the door quickly my "senses" told me that all the tension had faded...when he closed that door I was at least less of an intruder than I had been if I hadn't repeated it again...but oh well...it still didn't feel like a success...the guy was more awkward and confused but hopefully he will dwell on it...afterward all these wonderful words came to mind for me to say when I was there...things about God not being far away but close...about his amazing love and about the sense I had gotten of what the problem was outside...maybe if I had given him that he would have softened and been touched more...and maybe it would have annoyed him to hear a long speel...in my heart I knew the guy was tired of what was rehearsed...he had the sign on the door...he wanted heart and although he didn't know it that was what he wanted...and what he got...I'll never know if I could have done better but I feel that I could have...and I was just telling God how I failed but...well I knew it wasn't true...it felt true even in my heart but God gave me peace and when I prayed whether I had done well the answer was a gentle yes..."
quite awesome! My fondest moments with God always seem to come from me trying to love, pray, or serve others. This was one of the nights where God had me pray "in depth" with those insights and "senses" that he can give us...A wonderful experience that I've found he gives whenever we pursue it! I love loving so much that it pains my heart to see how violent the real world is...I just want to be out in God's love and heal all that violence...to soak it up in myself just to see it go...but alas...the job is much too big. But God has me help others in my own way and in the night his presence will often guide me to pray over houses or pray things I feel about the sleeping people around me. Or sometimes I'll just walk with him! Here is a narrative I wrote when I got caught out in a freak thunderstorm one night...I love getting soaked spontaneously!
THE EARTH IS WATERED BY AN ORCHESTRA:
Rain streaks down from a darkened sky. A caress and breath from my God, and a gentle, rhythmic pounding, softly falling like chimes upon the leaves. The lines of water descend from the heavens in undulating waves--Like breakers pounding against the shore of existence. The drops--they splatter on my face and skin--a light smattering of water that moistens me with its gentle breath. And as I lift my face to the rain, I see waves of droplets swirling down in a steadily increasing deluge, reflecting the shifting tempo of God's song. The rain patters down harder, like Bongo drums ululating through an African forest. A flash of God's strobe lights brightens the horizon in anticipation of what is to come...and then...a gentle rumble of thunder...God's clash of Chinese symbols. The rain comes down...down...first in gentle waves, as the droplets dance over God's world of drums, then harder and faster as if the world cries out for more of God's soft touch. As each droplet falls it adds its own accent to the melody--each unique sound combining to build the gentle song of God's rainfall orchestra. A line of livid light crackles down to settle with a flash on the earth below, and a breath of wind settles over creation, carrying with it the swirl and swish of a thousand softly falling snows. And the rain pounds the earth with mystery, its spray awash over creation. Tendrils of the mist touch against me...like the inquisitive stalks of fern leaves...uncurling and brushing against my face and hands. Thunder rumbles like a gong, reverberating through the whiteness of moisture hanging thick within the air, and the sound slithers--like melted butter--through the hanging mists. The rain falls in large, fat droplets--hard and fast--a splattering of stronger chords played upon the wood and ground of the world--God's guitar...And as if the heavens suddenly opened, the rain swirls down in a swift pirouette like the wash and play of the northern lights upon a shifting sky...thunder and lightning crackles through the air producing an undertone of strong bass chords, synced to the pulsing of far-off disco lights upon the horizon. Lines of bright light flash downward, strong and fast, like the quick, clean strokes of a surgeon's knife, leaving smoky trails behind them...and just like that...the rain fades...like the mist...evaporating gently into the air and distance as the light stutters upon the horizon...a camera's shutter opening and closing to capture its last pictures of the wet world left behind...I hear the clash of symbols...faintly and far away, and then all that remains is the gentle swell and wash of the sea as it fades into the distance...and the earth gurgles in merriment...as I walk, I hear the droplets from the trees singing happily against blades of grass and the gutters rushing to play with God's gift of moisture...and the earth is watered...
~Live in love as love in God! Love to live and live with me! Love with me and we shall see--all the wonders that unfold! ~Dan E. Midgett III
Monday, September 1, 2008
Remission!
Oh! If any of you bothered to read my earlier post I went back to lunch lady to tell her about the messed up receipt and about them charging my meal plan for less than I had eaten...she told me it wasn't my fault and it was sweet of me to come back later to tell them...so yeah...we're all cleared up if any of my friends were worried about my spiritual well-being...
Living and loving! As usual I've had some pretty amazing times, but it's so annoying trying to write all of down...I really can't be in the mood unless you guys decide to comment a little more than zero times. It's sortof hard writing like 10 pages for nothing so yeah...just thought I'd give a little heads up to my "fans" if there are any...in retrospect there may just be about "0" as well...but whatever. Loved your stories Joel. I've had a whole bunch of "water" fun as well mixed in with the general stuff. Saturday I pretty much stayed here all day and played cards, then went bike-riding in downtown rush hour for about an hour or so. when I got back I was told by anna that I was late to leave so I rushed to my room, rushed to pack, and rushed to get to her dorm and car so that we could leave. about 2/3 of the way there I got a phone call. Apparently, Anna had been "mistaken" and we would not leave to pick up Joseph from the airport and his Costa Rican trip for another 1/2 hour or so. And she just couldn't understand how being at her dorm loaded down with luggage for the whole weekend and being out of breath could be classified as an "inconveniance." Sisters! whew...she stuffed me in the lobby for half an hour while she did whatever girls do best up in their rooms. So there I was in the lobby of a girls' dorm feeling and looking awkward all by myself. But I stoically resisted being shamed and whipped out my trusty laptop! It's so easy to look busy with one of those in your backpack. I signed into email and chat and found that for once I had emails in my inbox so I read them and replied to one. cara was on the whole time and after my email I opened a chat link only to find that Cara "had to go" and I had caught the last 30 seconds...Girls! But luckily Emma came on to save the boring day...and right as I typed the first line down comes my sister about 10-15 minutes early to announce that yet again plans have been changed and we are leaving now...so I wanted to gracefully taper off the conversation, but Anna was impatient. we were "late" now and she couldn't tolerate even a minute...of course the timing was all her fault and she exaggerates terribly. Anyway I kept saying how I had to taper conversations not just leave and the end result was that she took my computer...typed 3 lines and slammed it closed...sorry Emma! But anyway my life...anna is super efficient but sometimes a little annoying like that. When we finally got to the airport to see my dear brother we ended up waiting for 10-15 minutes. Talk about ironic! So we all loaded up to go to G-ma's house and hear about the tropical trip. Joseph talked for about 3 hours telling us all about the awesome things he did for 2 weeks in one of the prettiest countries in the world. He had some amazing pictures and the waterfalls and wildlife were gorgeous. Finally at about 11:30 at night we were forced to cut Joseph's story short and go home to get to sleep...talk about dissapointing! :-)
That was a pretty awesome night as well...end result I ended up staying up until 3 again doing crazy things like building a lego tower about as tall as me. That's right! The base was only and 8 by 8 but the tower shot up like a needle to fantastic heights. Not exactly one of my lego wonders, but it was really pretty and fun to make. Here's some pics and a video of it and my surrounding creations. 
Anyway...the week kept getting better! Sunday we had an awesome message and worship...I felt a great connection and was called to share 2 times once to my family and once to the entire church up on the podium. Afterward we headed out to Lunch and finally to my uncles lakehouse! Where we spent an entire afternoon surfing on tubes and disks. Me and Jonny actually did most of it on our knees and it was pretty cool...sitting on there going super fast and just letting go and holding up the "no hands." We had an awesome time! There were two of lexi's friends there too...California girls! ANd they were a lot of fun...we stayed there until pretty late too, watching CSI, playing cards, and generally being goofballs in a social situation. I was feeling pretty sick though...I've been sick with something for about 2 weeks and last night it was even worse than usual. I prayed and my uncle proscribed some medications to take which I did. Unfortunately it didn't kick in until after we left but it did make me feel good. Then I finally caught up on sleep, cleaned my grandparents' house, and filmed movies of my lego weapons destroying eachother and taking out towers and ships. My weapons are so powerful now that I hardly ever use them because the cleanup takes more than the fun. My catapults can fling shells and rocks across the room. My giant artillary and the giant crossbow machine fire large and small bolts at targets. The crossbow can hit almost anything dead on...it's great for precision. Unfortunately my memory card kept filling up so I can't show you these amusing video's yet. Have fun with this though...till then!
~Dan
Thursday, August 28, 2008
A Sermon in the Night: Love Revelations for a Linear Mind
Last Night I meant to go to bed early...but as so often happens in my life now, things just...came up! Last night I just really felt the urge to write about how God's love can reach through and break a linear mind. It is an experience I have felt and revelled in...and one in which God has taught me pretty much all I know. The funny thing is a lot of my good friends seem to be realizing the same things about love and fellowship so it is cool to get that sort of a confirmation from God, and fun and awesome to hear that there are actually books that came out just his year on this topic that God revealed to me through himself. It just lets me see how important this message is to God and for us...so anyway here at Lipscomb I can feel the weight of the mind...most everyone is a christian through their heads and yet they are missing the subtle part of the heart that so many Christians miss...that something more. Here is the sermon I felt called to write to them. lol...it turned out to be abotu 4 or more pages, but I absolutely love what God called me to write...and hopefully I'll have the opportunity to tell others about it when the time comes. If anyone is curious here it is:
Love Revelations for the Linear Mind:
Mind and relationship. What makes and breaks the Christianity of our world? Mind is like the double-edged sword of scripture, we use it to hold fast and attack our foes in the faith and yet mind in itself is the very thing that keeps us from fully understanding our creator and his plan for Christianity. How many nights have you been walking or laying in your beds--just praying and begging for more of God. Doesn't he say he will give if we knock? Why is it that this approach seems to beat against an inexorable wall of failure? Why is it that when we pray for God, often nothing happens or situations seem to get worse? We feel and know that there is a great sea of love--just beyond our reach. A tantalizing ocean of power that we see the apostles in the first church weilding for God and yet we seem to have lost or can't reach. Our mind beats like the breakers of the ocean against a rocky shore...a froth of fury in its attempts to find the philosophical key or path that will lead us ever closer to God and yet is this all? Can God really say he will give and yet not give? Why is it that our efforts to advance ourselves fall short in God's sight? Can it be simply that we just don't have that faith? Can we even get it? Haven't we as devout Christians tried and tried? Yet God feels at a distance in a way. We know him and connect with him on occasions, but the world seems to rob us of our energy. What does it mean for us to live with "God's constant presence" in our lives if we have to do school and have a job in between...what is the answer? How can we possibly pray our whole lives...we'd never get anything done!
The answer to all these questions is simple...and yet so far from our nature as to be innaccessable. So far-reached and foreign to the mind that it is elusive and when our mind sees it in front of us--still! We do not comprehend. It is like the heart scriptures. You can read for months never coming across something new and then suddenly you really READ it and you get something new that was there under your nose all along! It takes an open mind, or--in this case--an open heart. The problem is not that we are not trying hard enough. Frankly, if we are true Christians we are already doing this but the problem is the mind itself. There is a level of Christianity that is beyond the mind. What we see in the new testament--those miracles, that witness, and the wonderful fellowship is all at this level--a level we as a nation have effectively shielded ourselves from with our dogma and mindset. We fail because we try--we fail because the problem is not outside our mind--it is in it. And this is no petty addiction, no habit that we can break--the only way to achieve the next level of the Lord and faith is to bridge your heart to God--because frankly it is beyond mind. If you TRY to get there you will always fail because you cannot get there by using your mind. There is no path that we can follow...we must get and use God's love and ready our hearts and frankly a faith that is predominantly mind will never do this. Anyone can be nice and good. Anyone can follow a rulebook but are we really playing a game if all we do is follow the rules? Can we realy approach a relationship or game cognitively? Because it will be cold and worthless without a very generous dose of the heart. This is a scary concept because America hardly understands what the heart is...it is NOT emotion. When I talk about mindset, I'm only using it in figurative terms because you can't HAVE just the mindset and succeed you must have more, and you can't just have emotion and succeed--you must have more. What I was saying is that your relationship cannot be all emotion and it cannot be all mind...there is more there, on a level that the English language is incapable of communcating...and bear with me here because this a major point of friction in Christianity...yes! You need God to guide you, yes! If you use your mind to try and follow God then it won't work because your mind can't understand half of what it needs. and yes! It's a good and wonderful thing to have God's constant presence in your mind and it's needed for a truly successful Christian life. But that's not necessarily just emotion is what I was saying. Neither is it just mindset or just praying or "just" anything. There are four types of Christian "mindsets" but I use the word not to mean something of the mind...I use it just because English doesn't have a word for what I was trying to say. More like personal life approaches that come from a level of the heart on which we do more than we can ever do--at least one of these dubbed "mindsets" is but most are fallatical. God, however, only wants one--and he has been trying to lead us to that one our whole lives. One- You have the dogmatic...people who are all mind and actually ridicule and are scared of the emotion part of Christianity calling it demonic and saying that the gifts God has given cannot exist in a modern world. This is a point of dispute, but I do not believe that these "gifts" have passed away because frankly if all we had was the Bible than what did Jesus come to fulfill? Didn't he come to replace a book of law with a personal covenant? So if his personal spirit has passed away then Jesus did nothing to change the world and we are no better off on the personal scale besides having our sins forgiven. And if this is so then after we are saved we can do nothing else besides build theories and dogma and become a "nicer" person...and I simply cannot believe this. two- you have the mindset of those who don't care at all and just go to church because they think that is what they are supposed to do and want to be saved...not only do they lack the heart part of the relationship they also lack the mind part. three-you have people who are all emotion...this rarely happens in America and it isn't necessarily bad, it is just unguided. Like in Ethiopia where my Dad went for a missions trip. The Churches there were all about the holy spirit...even the Lutherans and Presbyterian churches had found it and miracles and great works of the spirit were commonplace, but it was all they had and that resulted in a lack of direction and guidance like emotion without bedrock--not bad like I said in fact very good, but as the Bible puts it emotion without bedrock it is like those "who are blown back and forth by every wind and wave of teaching" if you are about "feeling" then you will fall because the "feeling" isn't God either and other things than God can simulate a feeling...of course feeling is an intimate part with God but it is not all...that is why the new testament is full of verses about "testing the spirits". You can't just chase "emotion" and the "experience" because despite what everyone thinks...that too makes for a shallow relationship. Let me put it this way: America is all about the experience and spirit because it is what we have missed for so many years, but it is not ALL about that...would you never read the Bible or take advice from other people? No Christianity is about sharing and fellowship...and our bedrock is the Bible and example of Jesus. You wouldn't marry someone just based on passion. You can't always be doing something physical, therefore the test of your commitment and the real test of your love isn't when you are caught up in the passion and experience of romantic love...it is in between...anyone can feel the love and passion when you feel God closely and intensely in the night...when he is right there it is easy to love...he is giving it to you but it takes true Christian strength to love in between...I've come to the realization that God isn't just going to take us over in life. But neither will he leave it just up to us. He wants us to make the decisions while in tandem with him...just like we need to give him all the attention and love in a relationship so he wants to give us that too and so he will not just "take us over" or "push us in the right direction" he may as in the example of Paul if we really need it, but that is not what it means to be in his presence all through life...and that was what I was saying. It is a misconception to think that "being in God's presence" all day means that he takes control all day or that you have to be praying all day, because frankly the experience, "high," will always fade unless you bring mind and heart into sync. Just like the mind will never get you far in a relationship with another person...and neither will just a passion. They are both shallow and limited and have a lack of depth. The only way your "high" is not going to fade is if you open your heart enough for God show you a new way of looking at things...and it doesn't mean that you are in an "experience" every second of the day...well it does but it is different...different than what we want to think it is. God's relationship follows the principles of a relationship with anyone. You can't just love him in the passionate moments...and you can't just read your Bible and pray to him with the mind and at a distance. You must love everything about him including everything and everyone you encounter in life. It will feel at times like God isn't there...like he isn't speaking to us but that is not true...he's always speaking but his speaking is guiding and he will not just "guide us through everything" God wants us to work too...why do you think he gave us free will in the first place? But what we miss is letting God serve us. True we cannot just sit down and let God do it all--and he won't. But neither can we in our pride think that it is possible to do it on our own. Again a point that has been made many, many times in the Christian faith, but which few people truly understand. How do we let God help us? Sometimes we can just pray for help and it comes, but often it doesn't. But God has a way out every time right? Isn't that what the Bible says? And yes, again...this is true as well. But it is different. In order to let God serve us we must get intimate with him. We cannot just pray for help...he will work with us but we must be moving. When you feel a distance from God but need his help here is a challenge. Pray, yes! But do not sit waiting and do not just plunge in and expect him to somehow fix it. I've done this many times and every time it came back to me doing it and therefore, eventually, sometime down the road, failing because I ended up doing it all. I found that in order to fully understand this I had to give. And then I found that as I gave God became clearer. But it was so much more than giving when I finally got it!
What I discovered was a revelation to me...but like what you read in the Bible you can read it a million times and not get it until you're ready. because a lot of it is heart-get so you can't tell other people...each of them has to bridge their own heart to God. There is no silver bullet to faith and higher intimacy...many books have tried and failed to put what is in heart onto paper and each and every one of you will need to have or have already had that love struggle and found God by reviving your heart to a level you never dreamed. But I will try to explain what God has put on my heart--not because I have some sort of superior knowledge but because God has placed this on my heart to share with others...like I said he "guides." All we need to listen while acting and accepting...and the key to better listening is love...just like everything else. Here is what I can put to words:
What we have lost is the spirit of the first Church...and if you will remember from Acts the spirit of the first church was not just experience and emotion...they told people to follow love, God, and their hearts but they were careful to provide bedrock because the mind is a trap...without a base our "emotions" can take us anywhere. Don't get me wrong they had the powerful gifts of the spirit moving like never before but that was not what the substance of their life was...if it was then their lives would mirror what Paul calls "the super apostles" they go about doing great signs and wonders but they use it for their own glory and make a loud noise with it. He says "Look to me...I may look small but what you see in me is God's truth. An unconditional love for others...always serving always submitting...I came to you and didn't ask for money...instead I worked for what I had and what I did I did for love..." and he goes on. This is what we have lost. In between the "experiences" is when we are called to revive the "spirit of the first church" How can we be so selfish to think that "being in God's presence constantly" means that it is always us having the "experiences" that we enjoy...no the majority of the Christian faith is not this...it is in our fellowship. Being a great Christian doesn't mean doing great things. It means acquiring God's love and giving it your whole life...and it gets better each day. There are always new ways to love because love is infinite. I fully believe I will never find the end of it all. "Eat, drink, and pray with each other...share everything and let God's love run between you like a river. If any of you have you should give to those who have less." America has made "fellowship" out to be scheduled times but any time Christians are together, be it work, play, me sitting here in class, or church, or any other time on campus we are commanded to be in "one accord and fellowship with eachother" And this is how God's constant presence is revealed...we do not seek after emotion...and although at times God needs to sweep aside the cobwebs of our mind that shroud our hearts and set us on the right track we do not just wait...we do not do it ourselves but we do not do it alone. God is his infinite goodness is kind enough to work in us sometimes even when we don't do any work but this does not mean that this is what we need to happen all the time because it won't. God does this for us when we really need it but then we don't just sit there waiting for him to do it again and again...no! We take what God in his infinite goodness has given to us and we turn it around. The absolute hardest way and most unfruitful way to grow in the Lord is to be in your own private world trying to build faith and "believe" harder. I've done it and it can work, but it is much less efficient than other methods. I beg you! Don't sit there trying to build something personally because it will be excruciatingly slow for you. No if you want God you must find his love by bridging your heart in your own unique way. Then when you get a taste of his true love give it all away. It will be hard but give all of it you can. Then you will see that as you give you get. No. America wants to think that you must find God to give to the world and become a powerful Christian but it is the absolute opposite. You must give if you want to get. You must give to others first and then you will get personally. If God gives us his love...say at a church camp...we don't hold it in our minds and try and hold onto it forever because eventually life will make whatever is not used go away...the way to hold God's love and presence at all times is to perfect fellowship. "God is in us and us in him" therefore we do not just adress the God in heaven and the God in us...we adress the third God as well...the God in others...if you don't it is like loving only 2/3 of God and that doesn't work. as it says in John "As you love others your love in me is made complete" this is why it says "what you do for others you do for me." Not allegorically like somehow since we did it for someone God credits it to himself...no we ARE actually doing it for God...and that is the subtle key...love for others and love for God and personal relationship are therefore the same love...because if you can't love others you can always love the God in them therefore you can love everyone at every time...the "trinity of love" God in us, God in others, God on high and that is why when God fills us with love it seems daily life eventually robs us of that "high" it is because we are not giving that love back to others...anything that is not used will fade. Love is an action as we have heard so often...so why do we think that love between us and God is only for us? It is all the same love..."we cannot possible love God and not love man" as it says in 1 John. So it is obvious that the only way to catalyst your relationship with God is to love others first. It says it in the Bible! And I don't mean just being a good nice person...I know you already do that...or should be doing that. I mean actively searching for a chance to use God's love...not when it is expected or as a good thing now and then but always...everything you do use that love that God gave you, when you work...work for God...and put that extra little touch and attitude to make others around you filled with joy...don't do the job do it better than normal..."Everything you do do it as if for God" same in interaction with others, actively look for a way to serve them...most people even Christians will approach sociality from the standpoint of "what can I get from this." they may not think it but it is what it is...do you go to church thinking to praise God personally or hoping to "get" something out of it? If you do then you have missed the truth of God's love...go to church ready to look for others who need encouragement and help...and you will feel the joy and completeness of God. Did you think it was only the pastor's job? You should be with others just for the standpoint of making them happy...does someone want help when you are busy? Ever felt that twinge? "ughh I have to stop this and do that thing for them that I don't even enjoy" even if you do help the person, after feeling this you have failed from God's standpoint...love is not aboout loving outwardly...God knows the difference. no! No! NO! true fellowship is based in a real love and if you have it you will be overjoyed to help another person. Don't even think that...think "just look how happy this person will be if I cheerfully drop what I'm doing. I can do it but will it really make them happy if I'm not in it?" When you help others look at what you are doing through their eyes. When you are high on God's joy all these "thoughts" that were limiting the love in our hearts go away...as you give if it is from God's standpoint and heart then he gives you more and more of his love...now instead of just feeling his love and trying to hold it after those "special nights" you take the love he gave you and spin around and start using it to channel his love through you to other people and if you truly do it from your heart more of God's love comes to replace what you gave until it is like a river that lasts all day...all week...all your life and this is truly God's constant presence...his voice in giving. That is why God can't just take you over because then how could you start this wonderful process? and as you practice giving...your mind changes so that your outlook becomes that of God's and you hear his voice more and more clearly as that great river of roaring love carves away the sheilds in your mind. Just using God's love erases the things in your mind that should not be. Then as you do this his voice begins to break through...and he tells you greater and greater ways to give his love. At first you may start small but God will start telling you all the time to pray for this person...or that...this house...giving you an impression to give to another person...and more. Much more! That is what God has shown me of his constant presence and of his true fellowship...that was the spirit of the first church (drawing God's love through us not for us but to others) and as we give to others then...finally then we get personally what we wanted from God...him constantly there and his spirit...and his experiences and instead of it being experiences every now and then it is God all the time and experiences all the time that he gives us as treats as a byproduct of living in his love...In a relationship everyone gets what they want more often as we serve. And with God...even serving becomes many times happier for you than doing your own thing used to be. How could we have missed it...it says it through the entire Bible "God is love...God is love...God is love...you should be love too...you can only get to God through love...God is made perfect in you through your love...love one another...look through eachothers eyes...serve one another...do as if to God...do everything in love...isn't it obvious? It says it all over but we still miss it! We can be pretty dumb sometimes...and since God started revealing things to me I see it through the entire new testament. In every book! Exactly what God said! but yeah THAT is what God has shown me...everything draws back to love...love unlocks all and is all...by realizing just 1 or 2 new things about God's love he changed my mind forever and now truly I can't even imagine how blind I was before...How is it hard to have faith when there is a river of him inside you at all times? The hard part is loving at all times and I'll be working on new ways to love others probably my whole life. Now of course you will get distracted by the day but just pick it up again...don't beat yourself up and don't start begging God to bring it back...well actually do beg...just don't sit there waiting...just look for a way to reorient by finding someone else to serve! And as you serve that person feel that love surge up in you...this truly is perpetual motion...one spark of love can start this cycle that turns even the coldest deadest heart into a living breathing unit in the awesome body of God. Like I said you must learn how to bridge your heart to God personally but these are what I can put to words...and what I feel he wants me to share!
The story of my life, my faith, and my relationship with my creator has taken many turns and there is really only one word that can outline it and that is "searching". I have been searching my whole life. searching for my savior, searching for those greater truths, searching for the answers to love and how I could really love others, searching for a transformation that would free me from my cycles. I didn't know what it was I fought against and as a result it took me years. But slowly, as the autumn leaf drifts and spring creeps with green tendrils. My bare patch of dirt found God. "seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened." They are both so wonderfully true, but it was a whole lot more than just seeking and knocking. In order to accept God and his love I had to fight the foundation of my faith. My mind...the very thing that was the source of my strength as a christian. And when I made myself willing to overturn my very mind, then he met me...when I was truly willing to do anything and wanting more than anything to find his face, then, only THEN did God reach in and give me what I sought...it was so much more than the label. Since 13 I had pledged to do anything for God...and believed it! I still believe it but even that was not enough...my heart had to catch up to it all...My firmness of mind had to be turned to a joy in my heart until truly I could feel joy doing anything for God and unspeakable love and joy as well as just doing it all. Little did I know how out of sync my heart was with my mind--how out of sync so many Christians in America are--and therefore perfectionism and strength of mind ruled me. And my precious saviour was locked out of it because my mind was putting up barriers not only to the world but to him. The very act of my strong mind was the very thing that was keeping me from plunging into the pool of his presence that I longed for. So I broke it...or I should say I finally brought myself to let God start to break it, and everything I have learned of love and spirit truly--my Lord has shown me. I'm not preaching from what I've heard or read...Nothing I've said or the points I've made have come from some sermon or book although I'm sure we've all heard parallel teachings. This is God, and as I sought God he revealed to me the things I impart in this letter...and this is the best way imaginable. As God teaches then through that acceptance of his love all things are laid at rest. Learning how to accept and use God's love healed my mind and has taught me truths and given me gifts and joys that were more than I ever imagined I wanted...but thank the Lord they were just what I needed! Learning how to love has opened my mind to the whispers of my creator that he is constantly trying to reach us with...and I feel closer to him. Loving has healed me of many other habits and addictions as well...my life has never had any serious evil. Since I was little I have been a strong devout Christian, but everyone struggles with something and loving with God I found that truly all addictions and habits are destroyed...when in love I've hardly felt tempted with those things that once plagued me. Of course anyone can relapse...all I am saying is that as we stay in God's love we don't even think about it. As Paul said...how can we hold onto sin if we have God? The truth of it is that if we get and stay at this level of fellowship and love, sin begins to be erased from our lives...and we can't stay there if we begin to sin. what he was saying was from a high level of the love fellowship. There is a point in relationship with God where sin and temptation seems foolish. Truly if we are in God's fellowship as we should be we cannot be captive to sin and that is what he was saying. As well we cannot hold onto pride. If we truly love others how is it beneficial to brag or make ourselves look good? I believe that each and every one of us is capable of a revelation from God and any one of the body could teach me something new. And just because I hear a message that God has already revealed to me does not mean I cannot thank the person and praise God for the reminder...or just the fact that God is working in them as well! The fact that I, some of my friends, or Paul is teaching another does not mean that pride exists but that we love you all dearly. It is only our own warped minds that want to percieve it as such...and therefore love is the key to faith and the paradox of "humbleness" as well...love is the key to everything...everything! It truly is!
here is a challenge for you...the next time God gives you a grand experience instead of revelling in it personally, keep using it and it will never go away...that is how you keep the "high" to put it in cruder terms. The distractions will come and go but you will always find God and his love again by loving others...and it gets easier to get back on track each time! And each time the distractions are dealt a blow and our mind becomes more ready to recognize and resist them. In love the only weapon Satan has is distractions because with God's love in our minds he can't speak to our minds anymore and if he tries it is easy to rebuff him. And when just a few people start loving in this way...loving not from themselves but straight from God then the world is changed and God's fellowship will be upon us again...it has happened small but it can happen big and I have seen it...let us each be a spark of love that will ignite God's plan for Christianity yet again...love is truly everything...but it is so much more than I can put into words or once thought I understood. But one thing you must remember and know is that if you follow this path the world will attack you. Jesus said that if we truly find his spirit and follow in his footsteps like this we will undergo hardship every step of the way. Every gift we give to God to serve others he prunes and it is often painful...but afterward that gift is so much stronger and better then what we could once use that we wonder how we could think the uncomfortability painful at all? This is why everyone is equal in God's sight because as we grow in him it doesn't matter what we are good at...everything we give to him no matter how humble he will strengthen...and so anyone can do anything. Just use what you have and it will become better! There will never be rest and if there is then we are in Christian fellowship or something is wrong. It will constantly be harder...I've never been able to get anywhere new and found that it was easy...I've THOUGHT it was but God always started pruning or training me again...showing me some new way to get closer or love better and he always will bless him! So the choice is here. Do you want God in this way personally or not? If you do prepare for the ride of your life! If you don't then all I can say is you are missing out...I will love you anyway but this is what Christianity was meant for! How can anyone sit still is my question...let's start a revival...let's spread God's love to the ends of the earth...together and in fellowship...we can DO anything...and God's love goes on...to infinity!
~Dan
Love Revelations for the Linear Mind:
Mind and relationship. What makes and breaks the Christianity of our world? Mind is like the double-edged sword of scripture, we use it to hold fast and attack our foes in the faith and yet mind in itself is the very thing that keeps us from fully understanding our creator and his plan for Christianity. How many nights have you been walking or laying in your beds--just praying and begging for more of God. Doesn't he say he will give if we knock? Why is it that this approach seems to beat against an inexorable wall of failure? Why is it that when we pray for God, often nothing happens or situations seem to get worse? We feel and know that there is a great sea of love--just beyond our reach. A tantalizing ocean of power that we see the apostles in the first church weilding for God and yet we seem to have lost or can't reach. Our mind beats like the breakers of the ocean against a rocky shore...a froth of fury in its attempts to find the philosophical key or path that will lead us ever closer to God and yet is this all? Can God really say he will give and yet not give? Why is it that our efforts to advance ourselves fall short in God's sight? Can it be simply that we just don't have that faith? Can we even get it? Haven't we as devout Christians tried and tried? Yet God feels at a distance in a way. We know him and connect with him on occasions, but the world seems to rob us of our energy. What does it mean for us to live with "God's constant presence" in our lives if we have to do school and have a job in between...what is the answer? How can we possibly pray our whole lives...we'd never get anything done!
The answer to all these questions is simple...and yet so far from our nature as to be innaccessable. So far-reached and foreign to the mind that it is elusive and when our mind sees it in front of us--still! We do not comprehend. It is like the heart scriptures. You can read for months never coming across something new and then suddenly you really READ it and you get something new that was there under your nose all along! It takes an open mind, or--in this case--an open heart. The problem is not that we are not trying hard enough. Frankly, if we are true Christians we are already doing this but the problem is the mind itself. There is a level of Christianity that is beyond the mind. What we see in the new testament--those miracles, that witness, and the wonderful fellowship is all at this level--a level we as a nation have effectively shielded ourselves from with our dogma and mindset. We fail because we try--we fail because the problem is not outside our mind--it is in it. And this is no petty addiction, no habit that we can break--the only way to achieve the next level of the Lord and faith is to bridge your heart to God--because frankly it is beyond mind. If you TRY to get there you will always fail because you cannot get there by using your mind. There is no path that we can follow...we must get and use God's love and ready our hearts and frankly a faith that is predominantly mind will never do this. Anyone can be nice and good. Anyone can follow a rulebook but are we really playing a game if all we do is follow the rules? Can we realy approach a relationship or game cognitively? Because it will be cold and worthless without a very generous dose of the heart. This is a scary concept because America hardly understands what the heart is...it is NOT emotion. When I talk about mindset, I'm only using it in figurative terms because you can't HAVE just the mindset and succeed you must have more, and you can't just have emotion and succeed--you must have more. What I was saying is that your relationship cannot be all emotion and it cannot be all mind...there is more there, on a level that the English language is incapable of communcating...and bear with me here because this a major point of friction in Christianity...yes! You need God to guide you, yes! If you use your mind to try and follow God then it won't work because your mind can't understand half of what it needs. and yes! It's a good and wonderful thing to have God's constant presence in your mind and it's needed for a truly successful Christian life. But that's not necessarily just emotion is what I was saying. Neither is it just mindset or just praying or "just" anything. There are four types of Christian "mindsets" but I use the word not to mean something of the mind...I use it just because English doesn't have a word for what I was trying to say. More like personal life approaches that come from a level of the heart on which we do more than we can ever do--at least one of these dubbed "mindsets" is but most are fallatical. God, however, only wants one--and he has been trying to lead us to that one our whole lives. One- You have the dogmatic...people who are all mind and actually ridicule and are scared of the emotion part of Christianity calling it demonic and saying that the gifts God has given cannot exist in a modern world. This is a point of dispute, but I do not believe that these "gifts" have passed away because frankly if all we had was the Bible than what did Jesus come to fulfill? Didn't he come to replace a book of law with a personal covenant? So if his personal spirit has passed away then Jesus did nothing to change the world and we are no better off on the personal scale besides having our sins forgiven. And if this is so then after we are saved we can do nothing else besides build theories and dogma and become a "nicer" person...and I simply cannot believe this. two- you have the mindset of those who don't care at all and just go to church because they think that is what they are supposed to do and want to be saved...not only do they lack the heart part of the relationship they also lack the mind part. three-you have people who are all emotion...this rarely happens in America and it isn't necessarily bad, it is just unguided. Like in Ethiopia where my Dad went for a missions trip. The Churches there were all about the holy spirit...even the Lutherans and Presbyterian churches had found it and miracles and great works of the spirit were commonplace, but it was all they had and that resulted in a lack of direction and guidance like emotion without bedrock--not bad like I said in fact very good, but as the Bible puts it emotion without bedrock it is like those "who are blown back and forth by every wind and wave of teaching" if you are about "feeling" then you will fall because the "feeling" isn't God either and other things than God can simulate a feeling...of course feeling is an intimate part with God but it is not all...that is why the new testament is full of verses about "testing the spirits". You can't just chase "emotion" and the "experience" because despite what everyone thinks...that too makes for a shallow relationship. Let me put it this way: America is all about the experience and spirit because it is what we have missed for so many years, but it is not ALL about that...would you never read the Bible or take advice from other people? No Christianity is about sharing and fellowship...and our bedrock is the Bible and example of Jesus. You wouldn't marry someone just based on passion. You can't always be doing something physical, therefore the test of your commitment and the real test of your love isn't when you are caught up in the passion and experience of romantic love...it is in between...anyone can feel the love and passion when you feel God closely and intensely in the night...when he is right there it is easy to love...he is giving it to you but it takes true Christian strength to love in between...I've come to the realization that God isn't just going to take us over in life. But neither will he leave it just up to us. He wants us to make the decisions while in tandem with him...just like we need to give him all the attention and love in a relationship so he wants to give us that too and so he will not just "take us over" or "push us in the right direction" he may as in the example of Paul if we really need it, but that is not what it means to be in his presence all through life...and that was what I was saying. It is a misconception to think that "being in God's presence" all day means that he takes control all day or that you have to be praying all day, because frankly the experience, "high," will always fade unless you bring mind and heart into sync. Just like the mind will never get you far in a relationship with another person...and neither will just a passion. They are both shallow and limited and have a lack of depth. The only way your "high" is not going to fade is if you open your heart enough for God show you a new way of looking at things...and it doesn't mean that you are in an "experience" every second of the day...well it does but it is different...different than what we want to think it is. God's relationship follows the principles of a relationship with anyone. You can't just love him in the passionate moments...and you can't just read your Bible and pray to him with the mind and at a distance. You must love everything about him including everything and everyone you encounter in life. It will feel at times like God isn't there...like he isn't speaking to us but that is not true...he's always speaking but his speaking is guiding and he will not just "guide us through everything" God wants us to work too...why do you think he gave us free will in the first place? But what we miss is letting God serve us. True we cannot just sit down and let God do it all--and he won't. But neither can we in our pride think that it is possible to do it on our own. Again a point that has been made many, many times in the Christian faith, but which few people truly understand. How do we let God help us? Sometimes we can just pray for help and it comes, but often it doesn't. But God has a way out every time right? Isn't that what the Bible says? And yes, again...this is true as well. But it is different. In order to let God serve us we must get intimate with him. We cannot just pray for help...he will work with us but we must be moving. When you feel a distance from God but need his help here is a challenge. Pray, yes! But do not sit waiting and do not just plunge in and expect him to somehow fix it. I've done this many times and every time it came back to me doing it and therefore, eventually, sometime down the road, failing because I ended up doing it all. I found that in order to fully understand this I had to give. And then I found that as I gave God became clearer. But it was so much more than giving when I finally got it!
What I discovered was a revelation to me...but like what you read in the Bible you can read it a million times and not get it until you're ready. because a lot of it is heart-get so you can't tell other people...each of them has to bridge their own heart to God. There is no silver bullet to faith and higher intimacy...many books have tried and failed to put what is in heart onto paper and each and every one of you will need to have or have already had that love struggle and found God by reviving your heart to a level you never dreamed. But I will try to explain what God has put on my heart--not because I have some sort of superior knowledge but because God has placed this on my heart to share with others...like I said he "guides." All we need to listen while acting and accepting...and the key to better listening is love...just like everything else. Here is what I can put to words:
What we have lost is the spirit of the first Church...and if you will remember from Acts the spirit of the first church was not just experience and emotion...they told people to follow love, God, and their hearts but they were careful to provide bedrock because the mind is a trap...without a base our "emotions" can take us anywhere. Don't get me wrong they had the powerful gifts of the spirit moving like never before but that was not what the substance of their life was...if it was then their lives would mirror what Paul calls "the super apostles" they go about doing great signs and wonders but they use it for their own glory and make a loud noise with it. He says "Look to me...I may look small but what you see in me is God's truth. An unconditional love for others...always serving always submitting...I came to you and didn't ask for money...instead I worked for what I had and what I did I did for love..." and he goes on. This is what we have lost. In between the "experiences" is when we are called to revive the "spirit of the first church" How can we be so selfish to think that "being in God's presence constantly" means that it is always us having the "experiences" that we enjoy...no the majority of the Christian faith is not this...it is in our fellowship. Being a great Christian doesn't mean doing great things. It means acquiring God's love and giving it your whole life...and it gets better each day. There are always new ways to love because love is infinite. I fully believe I will never find the end of it all. "Eat, drink, and pray with each other...share everything and let God's love run between you like a river. If any of you have you should give to those who have less." America has made "fellowship" out to be scheduled times but any time Christians are together, be it work, play, me sitting here in class, or church, or any other time on campus we are commanded to be in "one accord and fellowship with eachother" And this is how God's constant presence is revealed...we do not seek after emotion...and although at times God needs to sweep aside the cobwebs of our mind that shroud our hearts and set us on the right track we do not just wait...we do not do it ourselves but we do not do it alone. God is his infinite goodness is kind enough to work in us sometimes even when we don't do any work but this does not mean that this is what we need to happen all the time because it won't. God does this for us when we really need it but then we don't just sit there waiting for him to do it again and again...no! We take what God in his infinite goodness has given to us and we turn it around. The absolute hardest way and most unfruitful way to grow in the Lord is to be in your own private world trying to build faith and "believe" harder. I've done it and it can work, but it is much less efficient than other methods. I beg you! Don't sit there trying to build something personally because it will be excruciatingly slow for you. No if you want God you must find his love by bridging your heart in your own unique way. Then when you get a taste of his true love give it all away. It will be hard but give all of it you can. Then you will see that as you give you get. No. America wants to think that you must find God to give to the world and become a powerful Christian but it is the absolute opposite. You must give if you want to get. You must give to others first and then you will get personally. If God gives us his love...say at a church camp...we don't hold it in our minds and try and hold onto it forever because eventually life will make whatever is not used go away...the way to hold God's love and presence at all times is to perfect fellowship. "God is in us and us in him" therefore we do not just adress the God in heaven and the God in us...we adress the third God as well...the God in others...if you don't it is like loving only 2/3 of God and that doesn't work. as it says in John "As you love others your love in me is made complete" this is why it says "what you do for others you do for me." Not allegorically like somehow since we did it for someone God credits it to himself...no we ARE actually doing it for God...and that is the subtle key...love for others and love for God and personal relationship are therefore the same love...because if you can't love others you can always love the God in them therefore you can love everyone at every time...the "trinity of love" God in us, God in others, God on high and that is why when God fills us with love it seems daily life eventually robs us of that "high" it is because we are not giving that love back to others...anything that is not used will fade. Love is an action as we have heard so often...so why do we think that love between us and God is only for us? It is all the same love..."we cannot possible love God and not love man" as it says in 1 John. So it is obvious that the only way to catalyst your relationship with God is to love others first. It says it in the Bible! And I don't mean just being a good nice person...I know you already do that...or should be doing that. I mean actively searching for a chance to use God's love...not when it is expected or as a good thing now and then but always...everything you do use that love that God gave you, when you work...work for God...and put that extra little touch and attitude to make others around you filled with joy...don't do the job do it better than normal..."Everything you do do it as if for God" same in interaction with others, actively look for a way to serve them...most people even Christians will approach sociality from the standpoint of "what can I get from this." they may not think it but it is what it is...do you go to church thinking to praise God personally or hoping to "get" something out of it? If you do then you have missed the truth of God's love...go to church ready to look for others who need encouragement and help...and you will feel the joy and completeness of God. Did you think it was only the pastor's job? You should be with others just for the standpoint of making them happy...does someone want help when you are busy? Ever felt that twinge? "ughh I have to stop this and do that thing for them that I don't even enjoy" even if you do help the person, after feeling this you have failed from God's standpoint...love is not aboout loving outwardly...God knows the difference. no! No! NO! true fellowship is based in a real love and if you have it you will be overjoyed to help another person. Don't even think that...think "just look how happy this person will be if I cheerfully drop what I'm doing. I can do it but will it really make them happy if I'm not in it?" When you help others look at what you are doing through their eyes. When you are high on God's joy all these "thoughts" that were limiting the love in our hearts go away...as you give if it is from God's standpoint and heart then he gives you more and more of his love...now instead of just feeling his love and trying to hold it after those "special nights" you take the love he gave you and spin around and start using it to channel his love through you to other people and if you truly do it from your heart more of God's love comes to replace what you gave until it is like a river that lasts all day...all week...all your life and this is truly God's constant presence...his voice in giving. That is why God can't just take you over because then how could you start this wonderful process? and as you practice giving...your mind changes so that your outlook becomes that of God's and you hear his voice more and more clearly as that great river of roaring love carves away the sheilds in your mind. Just using God's love erases the things in your mind that should not be. Then as you do this his voice begins to break through...and he tells you greater and greater ways to give his love. At first you may start small but God will start telling you all the time to pray for this person...or that...this house...giving you an impression to give to another person...and more. Much more! That is what God has shown me of his constant presence and of his true fellowship...that was the spirit of the first church (drawing God's love through us not for us but to others) and as we give to others then...finally then we get personally what we wanted from God...him constantly there and his spirit...and his experiences and instead of it being experiences every now and then it is God all the time and experiences all the time that he gives us as treats as a byproduct of living in his love...In a relationship everyone gets what they want more often as we serve. And with God...even serving becomes many times happier for you than doing your own thing used to be. How could we have missed it...it says it through the entire Bible "God is love...God is love...God is love...you should be love too...you can only get to God through love...God is made perfect in you through your love...love one another...look through eachothers eyes...serve one another...do as if to God...do everything in love...isn't it obvious? It says it all over but we still miss it! We can be pretty dumb sometimes...and since God started revealing things to me I see it through the entire new testament. In every book! Exactly what God said! but yeah THAT is what God has shown me...everything draws back to love...love unlocks all and is all...by realizing just 1 or 2 new things about God's love he changed my mind forever and now truly I can't even imagine how blind I was before...How is it hard to have faith when there is a river of him inside you at all times? The hard part is loving at all times and I'll be working on new ways to love others probably my whole life. Now of course you will get distracted by the day but just pick it up again...don't beat yourself up and don't start begging God to bring it back...well actually do beg...just don't sit there waiting...just look for a way to reorient by finding someone else to serve! And as you serve that person feel that love surge up in you...this truly is perpetual motion...one spark of love can start this cycle that turns even the coldest deadest heart into a living breathing unit in the awesome body of God. Like I said you must learn how to bridge your heart to God personally but these are what I can put to words...and what I feel he wants me to share!
The story of my life, my faith, and my relationship with my creator has taken many turns and there is really only one word that can outline it and that is "searching". I have been searching my whole life. searching for my savior, searching for those greater truths, searching for the answers to love and how I could really love others, searching for a transformation that would free me from my cycles. I didn't know what it was I fought against and as a result it took me years. But slowly, as the autumn leaf drifts and spring creeps with green tendrils. My bare patch of dirt found God. "seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened." They are both so wonderfully true, but it was a whole lot more than just seeking and knocking. In order to accept God and his love I had to fight the foundation of my faith. My mind...the very thing that was the source of my strength as a christian. And when I made myself willing to overturn my very mind, then he met me...when I was truly willing to do anything and wanting more than anything to find his face, then, only THEN did God reach in and give me what I sought...it was so much more than the label. Since 13 I had pledged to do anything for God...and believed it! I still believe it but even that was not enough...my heart had to catch up to it all...My firmness of mind had to be turned to a joy in my heart until truly I could feel joy doing anything for God and unspeakable love and joy as well as just doing it all. Little did I know how out of sync my heart was with my mind--how out of sync so many Christians in America are--and therefore perfectionism and strength of mind ruled me. And my precious saviour was locked out of it because my mind was putting up barriers not only to the world but to him. The very act of my strong mind was the very thing that was keeping me from plunging into the pool of his presence that I longed for. So I broke it...or I should say I finally brought myself to let God start to break it, and everything I have learned of love and spirit truly--my Lord has shown me. I'm not preaching from what I've heard or read...Nothing I've said or the points I've made have come from some sermon or book although I'm sure we've all heard parallel teachings. This is God, and as I sought God he revealed to me the things I impart in this letter...and this is the best way imaginable. As God teaches then through that acceptance of his love all things are laid at rest. Learning how to accept and use God's love healed my mind and has taught me truths and given me gifts and joys that were more than I ever imagined I wanted...but thank the Lord they were just what I needed! Learning how to love has opened my mind to the whispers of my creator that he is constantly trying to reach us with...and I feel closer to him. Loving has healed me of many other habits and addictions as well...my life has never had any serious evil. Since I was little I have been a strong devout Christian, but everyone struggles with something and loving with God I found that truly all addictions and habits are destroyed...when in love I've hardly felt tempted with those things that once plagued me. Of course anyone can relapse...all I am saying is that as we stay in God's love we don't even think about it. As Paul said...how can we hold onto sin if we have God? The truth of it is that if we get and stay at this level of fellowship and love, sin begins to be erased from our lives...and we can't stay there if we begin to sin. what he was saying was from a high level of the love fellowship. There is a point in relationship with God where sin and temptation seems foolish. Truly if we are in God's fellowship as we should be we cannot be captive to sin and that is what he was saying. As well we cannot hold onto pride. If we truly love others how is it beneficial to brag or make ourselves look good? I believe that each and every one of us is capable of a revelation from God and any one of the body could teach me something new. And just because I hear a message that God has already revealed to me does not mean I cannot thank the person and praise God for the reminder...or just the fact that God is working in them as well! The fact that I, some of my friends, or Paul is teaching another does not mean that pride exists but that we love you all dearly. It is only our own warped minds that want to percieve it as such...and therefore love is the key to faith and the paradox of "humbleness" as well...love is the key to everything...everything! It truly is!
here is a challenge for you...the next time God gives you a grand experience instead of revelling in it personally, keep using it and it will never go away...that is how you keep the "high" to put it in cruder terms. The distractions will come and go but you will always find God and his love again by loving others...and it gets easier to get back on track each time! And each time the distractions are dealt a blow and our mind becomes more ready to recognize and resist them. In love the only weapon Satan has is distractions because with God's love in our minds he can't speak to our minds anymore and if he tries it is easy to rebuff him. And when just a few people start loving in this way...loving not from themselves but straight from God then the world is changed and God's fellowship will be upon us again...it has happened small but it can happen big and I have seen it...let us each be a spark of love that will ignite God's plan for Christianity yet again...love is truly everything...but it is so much more than I can put into words or once thought I understood. But one thing you must remember and know is that if you follow this path the world will attack you. Jesus said that if we truly find his spirit and follow in his footsteps like this we will undergo hardship every step of the way. Every gift we give to God to serve others he prunes and it is often painful...but afterward that gift is so much stronger and better then what we could once use that we wonder how we could think the uncomfortability painful at all? This is why everyone is equal in God's sight because as we grow in him it doesn't matter what we are good at...everything we give to him no matter how humble he will strengthen...and so anyone can do anything. Just use what you have and it will become better! There will never be rest and if there is then we are in Christian fellowship or something is wrong. It will constantly be harder...I've never been able to get anywhere new and found that it was easy...I've THOUGHT it was but God always started pruning or training me again...showing me some new way to get closer or love better and he always will bless him! So the choice is here. Do you want God in this way personally or not? If you do prepare for the ride of your life! If you don't then all I can say is you are missing out...I will love you anyway but this is what Christianity was meant for! How can anyone sit still is my question...let's start a revival...let's spread God's love to the ends of the earth...together and in fellowship...we can DO anything...and God's love goes on...to infinity!
~Dan
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
The longest Day Ever...
Sunlight! Oh! What a beautiful morning! I thought as I stretched in bed luxuriously...seriously I never thought 5 hours of sleep would leave me that refreshed...in fact I figured that me being stupid and staying up until 3 again watching a movie on my laptop would have bad side effects, but oh well...I take the surprise blessings...
Then it dawned on me...my alarm clock wasn't ringing..."wow! I thought I woke up earlier than my intended 5 hours of sleep and I STILL feel this good! Man I'm pretty awesome! That was about the time when I realized that my clock didn't say 7:05 like it was supposed too...(I was technically waking up at 7:00 but of course since my sister decided to be my mom and remind me I had to NOT set it for 7:00 exactly...make sense?) So I realized that my alarm clock did not say 7:05 like it was supposed to...in fact it didn't say 6, 5, or 4...not even 8...the darn alarm clock said 9:00...I mean talk about stupid...here my alarm clock was breaking all ready the second day...I mean seriously 9? like 2 hours after I set it for? Talk about practical jokes...I didn't think that my roommate Christian had it in him but I'd have to congratulate him on this one...I mean major kudos! I was scared out of my wits for a second...so I looked around to congratulate him and realized that Christian wasn't there...in fact no one was there...I looked at my alarm clock again...(9...9...9) it didn't change and then I really was scared out of my wits...it really WAS 9 in the morning and my first class started at 8...my first thought was "no way!" I set the darn thing...but there it was as off as ever...the switch and everything acting like I never did...so after laying in shock for another full 5 minutes I suddenly leaped into action...swiping my laptop off the floor and checking my schedule...classes booked back to back until 3 in the afternoon and my next one started in 10 minutes! darn! I thought all that work for nothing...stupid alarm clock or roommate or whatever it was! So I packed my laptop, books, notebooks, pencils, highlighters, calculators and homework for about 4 or 5 classes and rushed off...that was when I realized that my backpack weighed 50 pounds and wouldn't even zip all the way closed...this was not my best day...but luckily I made it to Calculus II on time and had fun hearing about revolving solids and the washer methods of 3-D integration again...only 5 homework problems!
Then I rushed off to my dorm to dump books and make it to Chapel which actually lifted my spirits quite a bit! Yay! they actually had real scottish bagpipes instruments and kilts...awesome ceremony and I learned that our president has a very funny sense of humor. He told this hilarious story about how he found out that some of us had made him a fake facebook and were impersonating him...lol...he went through all the espionage and gory cyber details about it, he even got his daughter to spy in on the operation posing as an innocent teenager...lol that guy could probably make anything funny...so then it was lunch but of course I couldn't eat that either because I had another class! this time gen. chemistry...it was easy too but incredibly long we basically sat there while he told us what matter and energy was all over again...like I haven't known that since like 5th grade! lol...then engineering CAD lab which teaches us to use some awesome engineering design programs like solid-edge 19....it's sortof like the blender in that you create 3-D models and simulations of machines and objects except it's like the engineering version so its a bit more practical...the best part though is they have this machine that takes your 3-D file and can actually carve whatever you program out of plastic cubes...so you can build an engine or machine on the spot! And after all that revelation I realized that the only homework we had was making a chart on Excel...and it was only one chart...the guy even asked me if I needed help I mean...what are WE? Engineering students what kind of a dummy doesn't know how to use Excel? But whatever...easy homework.
After that I hurried straight on over to Mr. Bradshaw's office at 3...this was the guy's class that i missed so I was eager to make my scheduled interview very positive and it was...he told me not to worry but I do...I mean missing a class...I've only done that once in my life and that was when I was sick...that's right! I've only called in 1 sick day in my life and that was when I had lymphatic poisening shooting red lines up my arm and threatening to kill me...lol yeah...It's a major pet peeve...
So yeah...after all of that I finally got to dump the 50 pound backpack I had been lugging around all day and go eat...that was when I realized that the cafeteria's had already closed and that it wouldn't open so no buffet for me even when I did get to eat sometime in the near foggy future...at this point I was already dying of starvation, my vision was going blurry, my knees were buckling, sound was fading from my ears! well maybe not that serious but I buckled my knees over in a corner and played cards for abotu 1 1/2 hours...dutch blitz again...seriously if you haven't played that game you need to become more cultured and find a card deck...seriously you're like the walkig dead without knowing bridge, hand and foot, and dutch blitz.
Finally I got to eat on my meal plan and so dejectedly I got in line to get my one burrito...stupid closed buffet! Right when I needed it! Then suddenly a bright idea occurred to me! Why not go ahead and ask for more than 1 burrito...sure all the other students were getting 1 and 1 was what we were supposed to get or it cost more...but I figured if I asked like there was nothing wrong with it I might trick the first cook in line...it worked she started making a taco-supreme special for me which is like 3 times as much food as I was supposed to get...then since it was already started none of the other cooks argued because that would make their jobs harder so I just smiled and joked and got my triple-sized food out of the line...not only did my smile weasel 2 extra burritos out of them...it also got me burritos that had about 2 times as much food as normal ones...in fact they wouldn't even wrap up they were so full...more like a pile of food on a circle of thin bread! and I got 3 of them! so now I had 6 times as much food as I was supposed to have by working the system...oh boy...I grabbed my food and walked out and as luck would have it no one noticed my over-sized bag, over-sized drink or any of my other "extras" in fact the people at the check-out desk missed me completely...i mean there they were carefully checking everyone out and I just walked on through...not that I was stealing of course...me? steal? *looks innocent* but seriously I was so hungry I forgot all about swiping my card and paying with my meal plan...lol...about the time I ate my last double-burrito and finished gobbling down most of my tortilla chips I realized that there was enormous line of people swiping cards and then I remembered I hadn't swiped mine...so of course being the sweet awesome christian guy I am I got up and payed for my food...I walked straight up and told them they missed me and payed...then I saw on my receipt that it listed me as having eaten a normal burrito...at this point I was walking out the door so I was like oh well...I did the best I could and left...
so yeah...either God blessed me or I sinned...I really did try to fix it all though...
So yeah then I went to my Chemistry lab for like 2 hours...that's gonna be a cool class! I mean seriously we get to do the whole mixing chemicals and burning things routine oh boy! exploding things! Bombs! Terrorism...and my own entire drawer of laboratory weapons! lol...fun, fun busy day...and now I'm going to get some homework done...
Oh! and we finally figured out what the deal with my alarm clock was...apparently it did go off at 7:05 because my roommate heard it but it didn't wake me up...he says I turned off my alarm clock, moved my arm and fingers and completely switched the switch off so it would never ring again...ALL IN MY SLEEP! So yeah that was pretty awesome...I already have a pretty crazy reputation because I locked one of the public computers so that only I could use it...so now half of High Rise knows that a mysterious Dan Midgett commandeered a public computer for half a day...lol...I love being infamous! So yeah...story of my life...either my roommate has a cruel sense of humor or he lies really, really well...oh well...I guess he COULD be right too...lol...I'm outta here!
~Dan Midgett
Then it dawned on me...my alarm clock wasn't ringing..."wow! I thought I woke up earlier than my intended 5 hours of sleep and I STILL feel this good! Man I'm pretty awesome! That was about the time when I realized that my clock didn't say 7:05 like it was supposed too...(I was technically waking up at 7:00 but of course since my sister decided to be my mom and remind me I had to NOT set it for 7:00 exactly...make sense?) So I realized that my alarm clock did not say 7:05 like it was supposed to...in fact it didn't say 6, 5, or 4...not even 8...the darn alarm clock said 9:00...I mean talk about stupid...here my alarm clock was breaking all ready the second day...I mean seriously 9? like 2 hours after I set it for? Talk about practical jokes...I didn't think that my roommate Christian had it in him but I'd have to congratulate him on this one...I mean major kudos! I was scared out of my wits for a second...so I looked around to congratulate him and realized that Christian wasn't there...in fact no one was there...I looked at my alarm clock again...(9...9...9) it didn't change and then I really was scared out of my wits...it really WAS 9 in the morning and my first class started at 8...my first thought was "no way!" I set the darn thing...but there it was as off as ever...the switch and everything acting like I never did...so after laying in shock for another full 5 minutes I suddenly leaped into action...swiping my laptop off the floor and checking my schedule...classes booked back to back until 3 in the afternoon and my next one started in 10 minutes! darn! I thought all that work for nothing...stupid alarm clock or roommate or whatever it was! So I packed my laptop, books, notebooks, pencils, highlighters, calculators and homework for about 4 or 5 classes and rushed off...that was when I realized that my backpack weighed 50 pounds and wouldn't even zip all the way closed...this was not my best day...but luckily I made it to Calculus II on time and had fun hearing about revolving solids and the washer methods of 3-D integration again...only 5 homework problems!
Then I rushed off to my dorm to dump books and make it to Chapel which actually lifted my spirits quite a bit! Yay! they actually had real scottish bagpipes instruments and kilts...awesome ceremony and I learned that our president has a very funny sense of humor. He told this hilarious story about how he found out that some of us had made him a fake facebook and were impersonating him...lol...he went through all the espionage and gory cyber details about it, he even got his daughter to spy in on the operation posing as an innocent teenager...lol that guy could probably make anything funny...so then it was lunch but of course I couldn't eat that either because I had another class! this time gen. chemistry...it was easy too but incredibly long we basically sat there while he told us what matter and energy was all over again...like I haven't known that since like 5th grade! lol...then engineering CAD lab which teaches us to use some awesome engineering design programs like solid-edge 19....it's sortof like the blender in that you create 3-D models and simulations of machines and objects except it's like the engineering version so its a bit more practical...the best part though is they have this machine that takes your 3-D file and can actually carve whatever you program out of plastic cubes...so you can build an engine or machine on the spot! And after all that revelation I realized that the only homework we had was making a chart on Excel...and it was only one chart...the guy even asked me if I needed help I mean...what are WE? Engineering students what kind of a dummy doesn't know how to use Excel? But whatever...easy homework.
After that I hurried straight on over to Mr. Bradshaw's office at 3...this was the guy's class that i missed so I was eager to make my scheduled interview very positive and it was...he told me not to worry but I do...I mean missing a class...I've only done that once in my life and that was when I was sick...that's right! I've only called in 1 sick day in my life and that was when I had lymphatic poisening shooting red lines up my arm and threatening to kill me...lol yeah...It's a major pet peeve...
So yeah...after all of that I finally got to dump the 50 pound backpack I had been lugging around all day and go eat...that was when I realized that the cafeteria's had already closed and that it wouldn't open so no buffet for me even when I did get to eat sometime in the near foggy future...at this point I was already dying of starvation, my vision was going blurry, my knees were buckling, sound was fading from my ears! well maybe not that serious but I buckled my knees over in a corner and played cards for abotu 1 1/2 hours...dutch blitz again...seriously if you haven't played that game you need to become more cultured and find a card deck...seriously you're like the walkig dead without knowing bridge, hand and foot, and dutch blitz.
Finally I got to eat on my meal plan and so dejectedly I got in line to get my one burrito...stupid closed buffet! Right when I needed it! Then suddenly a bright idea occurred to me! Why not go ahead and ask for more than 1 burrito...sure all the other students were getting 1 and 1 was what we were supposed to get or it cost more...but I figured if I asked like there was nothing wrong with it I might trick the first cook in line...it worked she started making a taco-supreme special for me which is like 3 times as much food as I was supposed to get...then since it was already started none of the other cooks argued because that would make their jobs harder so I just smiled and joked and got my triple-sized food out of the line...not only did my smile weasel 2 extra burritos out of them...it also got me burritos that had about 2 times as much food as normal ones...in fact they wouldn't even wrap up they were so full...more like a pile of food on a circle of thin bread! and I got 3 of them! so now I had 6 times as much food as I was supposed to have by working the system...oh boy...I grabbed my food and walked out and as luck would have it no one noticed my over-sized bag, over-sized drink or any of my other "extras" in fact the people at the check-out desk missed me completely...i mean there they were carefully checking everyone out and I just walked on through...not that I was stealing of course...me? steal? *looks innocent* but seriously I was so hungry I forgot all about swiping my card and paying with my meal plan...lol...about the time I ate my last double-burrito and finished gobbling down most of my tortilla chips I realized that there was enormous line of people swiping cards and then I remembered I hadn't swiped mine...so of course being the sweet awesome christian guy I am I got up and payed for my food...I walked straight up and told them they missed me and payed...then I saw on my receipt that it listed me as having eaten a normal burrito...at this point I was walking out the door so I was like oh well...I did the best I could and left...
so yeah...either God blessed me or I sinned...I really did try to fix it all though...
So yeah then I went to my Chemistry lab for like 2 hours...that's gonna be a cool class! I mean seriously we get to do the whole mixing chemicals and burning things routine oh boy! exploding things! Bombs! Terrorism...and my own entire drawer of laboratory weapons! lol...fun, fun busy day...and now I'm going to get some homework done...
Oh! and we finally figured out what the deal with my alarm clock was...apparently it did go off at 7:05 because my roommate heard it but it didn't wake me up...he says I turned off my alarm clock, moved my arm and fingers and completely switched the switch off so it would never ring again...ALL IN MY SLEEP! So yeah that was pretty awesome...I already have a pretty crazy reputation because I locked one of the public computers so that only I could use it...so now half of High Rise knows that a mysterious Dan Midgett commandeered a public computer for half a day...lol...I love being infamous! So yeah...story of my life...either my roommate has a cruel sense of humor or he lies really, really well...oh well...I guess he COULD be right too...lol...I'm outta here!
~Dan Midgett
Monday, August 25, 2008
School! At Last!
Oh my! I'm going to so totally have a blast here! I absolutely love Lipscomb...It's like everything good about school rolled into one! Not only do I get to choose my own courses so they are all interesting...I also get to schedule myself and my own homework which is so perfect for me. I always work best when I just organize it all myself...the homework just gets itself done...no schedules, no screaming mothers, and definately no study assignments that I don't enjoy...I get to prepare myself my way...which is pretty freakin' awesome for those of you who haven't gotten here yet...
So today I had my first 3 classes. I (cleverly) scheduled only 3 on Monday and made sure the first one didn't start until 9:00 that way I have plenty of breaks and "me" time. So this morning was just about the smoothest most greased thing I've ever seen...talk about travelling on a super-speedway of butter...oh boy...wake up at 8:00 after an awesome night of playing Dutch Blitz with my awesome Engineering and Physics friends...(which by the way I was the best at despite having just learned it)...just thought I'd inform you all of that! So I leisurely showered and got ready...meandered on down to the cafeteria to choose from the most massive selection of foods ever! And THEN, finally I went to a class. It was Calculus II which I learned won't teach me anything new until the last chapter of this semester...oh boy! Don't you love college? So then they gave us like 40 integration across curves problems, but whatever...the stuff is elementery really...AP Calculus and what I studied put me way ahead of the curve it seems...*hehe* get it "ahead of the curve?" I'm such a dork...
Better yet I learned that helping eachother with homework is actually disirable now...the teachers want the students to work together and teach eachother so it makes it all more like a sweet awesome family...I'm not anticipating helping all those girls though...our class has like 40 people! (lol...was that SEXIST? oopsie!) So yeah it's awesome...students are like together all the time...in the middle of school we just hang out so you can schedule chilling with friends and playing awesome games and sports into the middle of the school day...and we have all these awesome "hanging" spots that they built for us...the student center is pretty amazing! they actually have like 3 free wii stations downstairs as well as a billion TV's and about 1000 tables and chairs and couches and lounge areas...Lipscomb is freaking rich!
Then my other classes were this Honors Bible program which turned out to be awesome because there is like no writing...we read, speculate, and then debate, so much cooler than theology lectures and term papers...and then my last class was the awesome Engineering one...learned all about all the awesome things we get to build and do...fun, fun!
Anyway I'm having a blast! This is like hyper-accelerated ADD environment...no rigid structures at all....you just show up for your scheduled classes and work everything else out around those on your own...for instance I just got asked to join the flag football team for High Rise since I'm so awesomely fast! They noticed and asked me after like the first ultimate frisbee game I played so yeah...this is great I'm living and loving and doing everything I find fun...the only things I need are legoes and computer-cam and microphone...
Speaking of scheduling fun things this afternoon I was chilling with some good friends for hours...and we played Catch Phrase for about 2 of them. Love that game! And I'm so good at it too...I annoyed this girl so bad...lol. we changed the rules so that you can't pass unless your team gets it but the other team can guess to and try and beat you to it...so yeah...I got totally in tune with all those subliminal girl signals that they pass (it was boys vs. girls) ...I don't know if that is good or bad lol...I was getting the things like every second...I got 3 in about the space of 8 seconds...yay! it frustrated them no end! NOW we're actually having a late-night walk which is so amazing! I love night walks!
~Danny Midgett
So today I had my first 3 classes. I (cleverly) scheduled only 3 on Monday and made sure the first one didn't start until 9:00 that way I have plenty of breaks and "me" time. So this morning was just about the smoothest most greased thing I've ever seen...talk about travelling on a super-speedway of butter...oh boy...wake up at 8:00 after an awesome night of playing Dutch Blitz with my awesome Engineering and Physics friends...(which by the way I was the best at despite having just learned it)...just thought I'd inform you all of that! So I leisurely showered and got ready...meandered on down to the cafeteria to choose from the most massive selection of foods ever! And THEN, finally I went to a class. It was Calculus II which I learned won't teach me anything new until the last chapter of this semester...oh boy! Don't you love college? So then they gave us like 40 integration across curves problems, but whatever...the stuff is elementery really...AP Calculus and what I studied put me way ahead of the curve it seems...*hehe* get it "ahead of the curve?" I'm such a dork...
Better yet I learned that helping eachother with homework is actually disirable now...the teachers want the students to work together and teach eachother so it makes it all more like a sweet awesome family...I'm not anticipating helping all those girls though...our class has like 40 people! (lol...was that SEXIST? oopsie!) So yeah it's awesome...students are like together all the time...in the middle of school we just hang out so you can schedule chilling with friends and playing awesome games and sports into the middle of the school day...and we have all these awesome "hanging" spots that they built for us...the student center is pretty amazing! they actually have like 3 free wii stations downstairs as well as a billion TV's and about 1000 tables and chairs and couches and lounge areas...Lipscomb is freaking rich!
Then my other classes were this Honors Bible program which turned out to be awesome because there is like no writing...we read, speculate, and then debate, so much cooler than theology lectures and term papers...and then my last class was the awesome Engineering one...learned all about all the awesome things we get to build and do...fun, fun!
Anyway I'm having a blast! This is like hyper-accelerated ADD environment...no rigid structures at all....you just show up for your scheduled classes and work everything else out around those on your own...for instance I just got asked to join the flag football team for High Rise since I'm so awesomely fast! They noticed and asked me after like the first ultimate frisbee game I played so yeah...this is great I'm living and loving and doing everything I find fun...the only things I need are legoes and computer-cam and microphone...
Speaking of scheduling fun things this afternoon I was chilling with some good friends for hours...and we played Catch Phrase for about 2 of them. Love that game! And I'm so good at it too...I annoyed this girl so bad...lol. we changed the rules so that you can't pass unless your team gets it but the other team can guess to and try and beat you to it...so yeah...I got totally in tune with all those subliminal girl signals that they pass (it was boys vs. girls) ...I don't know if that is good or bad lol...I was getting the things like every second...I got 3 in about the space of 8 seconds...yay! it frustrated them no end! NOW we're actually having a late-night walk which is so amazing! I love night walks!
~Danny Midgett
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Poem Questions: The wisdom of the world
Questions:
Have you ever wondered whether sky meets earth someplace?
Have you ever wondered whether life is out in space?
Have you ever ridden on a thought--
And flew away till time was not?
If you have, then you will know--
that life is but a question--so...
Whatever are we doing here?
However can we be?
Whatever is there in the mind
that's waiting here in me?
How can I live a happy life?
whatever is disgrace?
Could it be that what we see
Is really just a face?
How much is mind--and what is real
If shadows twist the world?
Whatever is there to believe
If mind is not a pearl?
And if the mind is relative--
Adrift upon the wind
Then how can we be sure of truth?
A nauseating blend...
If question mind than question time
For isn't it inside?
For if our thoughts are fiction too--
Well what is there to hide?
And if the mind is relative
Then what--in truth--remains?
For isn't what we see in life
The apex of our brain?
And if my life just isn't real
Then is there even me?
These questions they are endless streams
A logic I don't need
And if my life is but a scrap
a parcel in my brain
Then what? My name? My very frame?
What reference is there left?
This convoluted logic streams
From thoughts adrift from God
For if we move my Lord from life
What remains--but sick facade
With God all questions fade away
To gently murm'ring whispers
With God in sight, my life has light
A precious joy--a vesper...
~Dan Midgett 8/04/08 12:30 AM
Have you ever wondered whether sky meets earth someplace?
Have you ever wondered whether life is out in space?
Have you ever ridden on a thought--
And flew away till time was not?
If you have, then you will know--
that life is but a question--so...
Whatever are we doing here?
However can we be?
Whatever is there in the mind
that's waiting here in me?
How can I live a happy life?
whatever is disgrace?
Could it be that what we see
Is really just a face?
How much is mind--and what is real
If shadows twist the world?
Whatever is there to believe
If mind is not a pearl?
And if the mind is relative--
Adrift upon the wind
Then how can we be sure of truth?
A nauseating blend...
If question mind than question time
For isn't it inside?
For if our thoughts are fiction too--
Well what is there to hide?
And if the mind is relative
Then what--in truth--remains?
For isn't what we see in life
The apex of our brain?
And if my life just isn't real
Then is there even me?
These questions they are endless streams
A logic I don't need
And if my life is but a scrap
a parcel in my brain
Then what? My name? My very frame?
What reference is there left?
This convoluted logic streams
From thoughts adrift from God
For if we move my Lord from life
What remains--but sick facade
With God all questions fade away
To gently murm'ring whispers
With God in sight, my life has light
A precious joy--a vesper...
~Dan Midgett 8/04/08 12:30 AM
A tower-building exercise...
One day...long ago...on primordial earth--when pangaea still ruled the continents and the waters of the flood were still receding...a tower was built to bridge heaven and earth...the scornful ruler was ancient Nimrod and he blasphemed that holy name with his pride...thinking that he could bring heaven to himself by building the tallest tower that has ever been created. But God in his justice judged Nimrod and brought him to shame...he threw confusion into the workers of that kingdom scattering man across the earth and giving him a myriad of languages with which to confound the unity of the nations...
Now in the 21st century this tower is revealed again built entirely of Jenga blocks! this tower is taller than me and is narrower than my hand...a proverbial needle built entirely with a triangle framework which I discovered was actually stronger than the classic square...and the balance was uncanny...surprising what is possible when you put your mind to it...
Now in the 21st century this tower is revealed again built entirely of Jenga blocks! this tower is taller than me and is narrower than my hand...a proverbial needle built entirely with a triangle framework which I discovered was actually stronger than the classic square...and the balance was uncanny...surprising what is possible when you put your mind to it...
The Weird THings of the World
Wow that was weird...a few nights ago this hypno-therapist came and put on a show for us. A hypno-therapist is someone who hypnotizes people and plants aversions to things like smoking in them...that way it is easier for them to break the habits...This guy was awesome...he hypnotized like 30 people and put on a show with them...
First he sorted the group so that he had the best "subjects" that part was cool and I was actually one of the good subjects although I didn't want to go up there and be hypnotized...you can't do anything against your morals while you are hypnotized but it does loosen them so you do more that you would normally be scared to do...and are more flamboyant...plus you don't remember any of it when you wake up so I didn't like it. It was fun to watch though...his tests were all imagining...apparently good "subjects" do things when they imagine circumstances strongly like he told me to clasp all of my fingers and hold up the pointers then he had me look between them and try to hold them apart while imagining that a rubber band was pulling them together and it didn't work my fingers snapped together like there was a real rubber band and I couldn't hold them apart...then he had us hold out our arms and imagine that a balloon tugged upwards on one while the other had a heavy weight...and the balloon arm lifted up on its own while the weight arm dropped...it was cool and freaky seeing my body do things from imagination...
so then he took the best people and had them do all this crazy stuff...like he hypnotized them and then told them to be celebrities and a crowd with different people having different roles...it was so funny the people acted like stars and the crowd like a real crowd...while they were hypnotized they believed whatever he told them...3 people in the audience became hypnotized while he was speaking and he called them down to the stage and they came...and he told them all these crazy things like one guy he told to start dancing whenever this type of music came on and he did...and it was funny because the guy didn't remember being told to dance so he'd be like..."dude what are you doing? we're trying to put on a show here!" and the guy wouldn't remember why he randomly got up to dance...the celebs were funny too they actually tried to dance and sing too and as they were waking up he gave them post commands like one girl he told to straighten the chairs when she woke up...the other to scatter them and this one guy to stand up on his chair and yell: "I'm sexy!" and this other guy to pretend he was James Bond and when his theme song started playing to sneak to the back wall and they all did it...it was so funny and kindof weird too...but the guy was nice and from what I could see of his face he was just using it to amuse us...I'm sure it could be used to do bad things too though...better yet when all the people woke up they didn't remember a thing of all the crazy stuff they had done...Oh boy you'd have to be there but it was hilarious...we laughed so much that he told his subjects that whenever we clapped or they heard laughter or noise instead of him that it was just going to make them more relaxed that way we could laugh all we wanted and it didn't even phase the people...
~Dan from the city of slush
First he sorted the group so that he had the best "subjects" that part was cool and I was actually one of the good subjects although I didn't want to go up there and be hypnotized...you can't do anything against your morals while you are hypnotized but it does loosen them so you do more that you would normally be scared to do...and are more flamboyant...plus you don't remember any of it when you wake up so I didn't like it. It was fun to watch though...his tests were all imagining...apparently good "subjects" do things when they imagine circumstances strongly like he told me to clasp all of my fingers and hold up the pointers then he had me look between them and try to hold them apart while imagining that a rubber band was pulling them together and it didn't work my fingers snapped together like there was a real rubber band and I couldn't hold them apart...then he had us hold out our arms and imagine that a balloon tugged upwards on one while the other had a heavy weight...and the balloon arm lifted up on its own while the weight arm dropped...it was cool and freaky seeing my body do things from imagination...
so then he took the best people and had them do all this crazy stuff...like he hypnotized them and then told them to be celebrities and a crowd with different people having different roles...it was so funny the people acted like stars and the crowd like a real crowd...while they were hypnotized they believed whatever he told them...3 people in the audience became hypnotized while he was speaking and he called them down to the stage and they came...and he told them all these crazy things like one guy he told to start dancing whenever this type of music came on and he did...and it was funny because the guy didn't remember being told to dance so he'd be like..."dude what are you doing? we're trying to put on a show here!" and the guy wouldn't remember why he randomly got up to dance...the celebs were funny too they actually tried to dance and sing too and as they were waking up he gave them post commands like one girl he told to straighten the chairs when she woke up...the other to scatter them and this one guy to stand up on his chair and yell: "I'm sexy!" and this other guy to pretend he was James Bond and when his theme song started playing to sneak to the back wall and they all did it...it was so funny and kindof weird too...but the guy was nice and from what I could see of his face he was just using it to amuse us...I'm sure it could be used to do bad things too though...better yet when all the people woke up they didn't remember a thing of all the crazy stuff they had done...Oh boy you'd have to be there but it was hilarious...we laughed so much that he told his subjects that whenever we clapped or they heard laughter or noise instead of him that it was just going to make them more relaxed that way we could laugh all we wanted and it didn't even phase the people...
~Dan from the city of slush
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