abort73

currently spinning — the war, thought i had died.

With President Obama’s rise to office this past month, a festering issue has united Christians non across the nation — abortion. At the Institute of Biblical studies a few weeks ago, several high school students gave an announcement about representatives from abort73 coming to Ithaca. This got me thinking a tad, in light of the election hooplah last fall (i.e. many Christians I know electing to vote for McCain over Obama because a female vp is the ‘lesser evil’ compared to abortion), i.e. single-issue voters.  

I don’t pretend to be copiously knowledgeable about such an issue — don’t get me wrong — I don’t agree with the slaughtering and grotesque procedures women choose to endure on the claims of a constitutional right, but if I am not picketing in front of Washington DC, does this make me less of a Christian? Do I claim to love Christ less because I see equally distrubing injustices in the slums, the homeless shelters, the nations? What good is it for someone so self-righteous to merely wave a finger in my face for not being superbly involved in an issue as this? As if the more times we yell, protest, stomp and judge, can save the wayward of our nation.

For if we could simply stop sin, or convince others to do what we’d like them to on pure wit and reason, what need is there for a Savior whom can change our hearts towards redemption? He is the only hope. Even with abortion.

songlist

I’ve always wanted to do this.. so here goes :D

 

How To Play:
Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first few lines (unless they reveal the song title) from the first 30 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing.
Step 3: Strike through the songs when someone guesses both artist and track correctly. (Or just the song title and the show it’s from.)
Step 4: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!
Step 5: If you like the game post your own.

 

 

1. i’m so alive, i’m so enlightened, i can barely survive a night in my mind. i’ve got a plan, i’m gonna find out how boring i am, and have a good time.

2. it’s such a shame to let this go to waste, there’s a little time left here for saving face. we tried to put a bandage on these years, i know this isn’t what you want to hear

3. save yourself, ’cause the only thing that matters is that you get away from the pain and the thought of losing your mind. don’t blame yourself, it was everyone around you who made you act this way, there’s the stage and your chance to watch it go down.

4. o Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made, i see the stars, i hear the rolling thunder, thy power throughout the universe displayed

5. the air is visible around you, rising up and off your lips in slow currents, and i watch as your face is framed in its slow currents, drifting curls, a trailing path, a long drag becomes a tress of blue and ash

6. there you go changing my plans again, there you go shifting my sands again, for reasons I don’t understand again, lately I don’t have a clue…

7. i’m gonna spend another night all by myself, like a loser on the outside looking in, no one cares if I disappear and don’t come back, cause the only friends I have are in my head

8. i hope this old train breaks down, then I could take a walk around, and, see what there is to see, and time is just a melody

9. here I am dying to say, i am desperate for your touch, i fall upon this desert ground and i am empty at your feet – will you break me now..

10. i’m keeping quiet till there’re no more sirens, lately it’s hard to keep the hinges on with all the noise, i’ll find my words when there is no one talking, the room is spinning I have got no choice…

11. I was born in Lil’ Rock, Had a childhood sweetheart, We were always hand in hand. I was hightop shoes and shirt tails, Suzy was in pig tails, I know I loved her even then

12. when peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll…

13. Somebody said they saw you, the person you were kissing wasn’t me, and I would never ask you, I just kept it to myself, I don’t wanna know if you’re playin’ me, keep it on the low

14. as I survey the ground for ants, looking for a place to sit and read, i’m reminded of the streets of my hometown, how they’re much like this concrete that’s warm beneath my feet 

15. if that’s all you will be, you’ll be a waste of time, you’ve dreamed a thousand dreams, none seem to stick in your mind

16. Wonderful Savior, My heart belongs to Thee, I will remember always the blood You shed for me. Wonderful Savior, my heart will know Your worth, so I will embrace You always as I walk this earth

17. you were there, pulling thorns from your fingers, from all the foolish flowers placed in tender hands. And so I’m here, making sure there is not one left, on this hopeless little rose, I’ve been saving for you..

18. yesterday, is not quite what it could’ve been, as were most of all the days before. but I swear today with every breath I’m breathing in, I’ll be trying to make it so much more

19. God, is bigger than, the air i breathe, the world we’ll leave, God will save the day, and all will say..

20. …and I’m trying to make you sing, from inside where you believe, like it’s something that you need, like it means everything

21. i’m setting the stage for the things I love, and Im now the man I once couldnt be, nothing on earth could now ever move me, I now have the will and the strength a man needs

22. i have called you children, i have called you son. what is there to answer if i’m the only one. morning comes in paradise, morning comes in light, still i must obey still i must invite

23. on a day like this, i wanna crawl beneath a rock, a million miles beneath the noise, the commotion that never seems to stop

24. she has a fear of heights, the way you feel when you’re leaving on your first flight. she’s like a sinking stone, fading from the surface, but we are never alone. she’s on a tightrope, losing balance, yet something’s pulling her towards hope. i want to run to her, but I’ve already played that card…

25. friend, it’s getting late, we should be going. we’ve been sat here beneath these flickering neons for hours while I am cracking their cracking, you are deciphering me, for i am a mystery, I am a locked room in a tall tower..

—-

 

I’ll only do 25 since I need to pack for retreat =) Some of these songs I really like, some I haven’t listened to in decades. Have fun!

mornings

Sophomore year of college, I used to pull an all-nighter almost every week (Two physics problem sets due Friday plus small group late on Thursday night = allnighter!!). Yet, these days when I get less than 6 hours of sleep, the next morning feels like the living dead. 

 

:sighs:

 

Anyway, this coffee press that my dad got me for Christmas is surely going into good use :) Rwandan free-trade coffee never tasted better!

days

There are days when it seems that the tangible world around me is just fading, fading and then…

 

//

 

It seems the older I get the more natural it is for death to be… more natural. It doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to cope with.

To the one with the wounded heart
The years fighting have left you scarred
Wait the light will come
To the one with the distant eyes
All this crying has left you dry
Wait the light will come
Wait the light will come
Lift your eyes
The sun has overcome the night
Come alive
As we shine in loves true light

Here is laughter beyond the tears
Here is courage to face your fears
Look the light has come
So rise you daughters and stand you sons
Claim the victory that Jesus won
Look the Light has come
Look the Light has come

last

My schedule for the last semester of undergraduate….

 

.. yet so much left to be done!

urbana 2009

http://www.urbana09.org/

The Urbana 2009 website is up. Urbana is the largest missions conference in North America ever, accumulating over 20,000 college students in one location to worship, pray, and seek how the Kingdom of God plays out in their own lives. I attended this conference in 2006 and was blown away at the sheer magnitude of college students all across the country who are simply making Christ known in their lives and worlds. The speakers are phenomenal, worship cross-cultural, and seminars rich in knowledge and wisdom.

But besides all those things, since those things alone are not worth naught without the God of the universe changing hearts and lives within each of those five days.

So yes — GO! :)

against

A friend of mine made the observation this previous summer that for the majority of my (semi)adult life, I’ve been operating under the pretense of being independent and thus, comes the ease in disagreeing with my parents. Throughout all of highschool and most of college, I’ve learned that the fundamental thing that separates myself with my family, deeper than even the home and blood we share, is a faith in Jesus Christ that puts us in drastically separate places on the other side of death.

Because of this, I’ve ensued in a number of arguments, disagreements, fits, where my parents claim such things that I believe in are but a fads and phases… because of this, it is now that I have no problem disagreeing with them and standing up for what I believe in. My entire life has been a series of rebellious cases against them, though contradictory to the nominal definition of ‘rebellion.’

Though the ease does not come without heartache, nor the exasperation I feel whenever I hear them talk about how important a successful career, successful marriage, successful life, all are…

never

..Love never ends… — 1 cor 13:8.

 

because it’s just like You
to turn these broken things into new

babel

Over the past 3.5ish years I’ve been at college, I’ve heard over two dozen or so messages on community and love and maybe one on the Gospel of the Cross. Yet true community does not occur until there is a foundational knowledge of the Christ’s substitutionary atonement and His propitiation for our sins. There is no Body without the Head.

… not a judgement (because most of the AA community runs away screaming at the sight of that word)… just an observation.

 

“… come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth…” — gen.11.4

in an alcove

I had this thought today that I only have one semester until graduation. One semester until real jobs with real bills (all of them, not just rent/utilities/cable) and real vehicles with insurance and real.. everything? I thought about the last time I had this feeling — four years ago, being apprehensive about whether or not I should just admit defeat and go to UIUC like my parentals wanted.

I thought about how that year, senior year had been so challenging for me… and how much I think I was stretched and grew because of it. I spent a good chunk of my time in church crying or about to cry because of clashing visions and you guessed it, church drama. Maybe it’s the whole going to college halfway across the country thing, but I haven’t kept in touch with more than a handful of my high school friends…. sometimes it makes me sad, but sometimes I’m not quite sure how to feel about it.

Last Friday, we had an informal large group about thanksgiving and what it means to give thanks. Henry gave a brief message, then we split into groups to share and pray. Dave Smith shared a few things on his heart with my group, including a history of religion at Cornell and how God works in the long run. He also said this very curious thing: God has placed you at Cornell to show you something it’d be difficult to show you elsewhere.

And suddenly I felt like some sort of dam burst in my heart and there was sudden, brief clarity. What could I not have learned at UIUC, CFC? I did not learn comfort. I did not learn that great churches and fellowships brew at every college campus. I did not learn a guaranteed future — that I would naturally return home to Chicago and be merry for the rest of my days there. I would not have learned inner city — and the need that exists on a global scale. I would not have learned what it means to let go — to remember the past fondly as a life, then to move forward.

I’m sure there are many other things that are easy for me to see and know now, but would be difficult for me otherwise in other situations. I don’t even know what this post started as … something about my future? Hm…