Privacy Please

I am figuring out that a fundamental woe of the american lifestyle, (as evidenced in my own life), is a demand of privacy at all and any cost. We are unsettled by phone-tapping, the patriot act, etc bc it gets to the core of what we demand as americans : privacy.

Think about it.. we even have gone so far as to demand, even on something as etheral as the internet, a section cut out called MY space (.com). This Space is supposed to be so distinct and seperate as to encapsulate everything that is different and unique about me relative to you.

I think this perceive right that we will defend at all cost is at the very least contrary to the efforts of the gospel to bring us to a place of transparency in every corner of our lives. One of my favorite quotes, is from a great dutch theologian named Abraham Kuyper..."There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: Mine!"

This is all relevant to me because having a new roomate this summer he has the type of personality that desires to know where i am and where i am going at all times of the day. Now he isn't OCD about it but he simply desires the truth. And there are times, more often than not, that i want to tell him anything but. It brushes up against me to have someone know that much about me, to know my whereabouts and be accountable to them at all times. He/she might really find out how i dont't honor God with all my time, and then rightly call me into question.

I'm not arguing for some systematic time-sheet that God keeps us to but i wonder if some of the arguments behind this right (who came up with this as a right anyways) are just masks of pretension?

Eric Fromm meets Jesus

As a discouraged psychology major about to graduate i feel it is my duty to dispel terrible untruths that reign supreme in modern psychology meanwhile affirming the things and processes that are true and accurate. Let me introduce you to Eric Fromm, a German/American who was a humanist but made leaps and bounds in the development of humanist psychology and human nature.

He was widely studied in Hebrew literature but had a tough time wrestling with this notion that evil lies deeply engrained in the human heart and is the default function apart from the regenerative work of the holy spirit. That being said he has something interesting to say regarding the nature of choice. This is not a commentary on a type of absolut free will simply the day-to-day nature of choosing Christ or the world. Interesting stuff from a humanist.....

"Our capacity to choose changes constantly with our practice of life. The longer we continue to make the wrong decisions, the more our heart hardens; the more often we make right decisions, the more our heart softens-or perhaps better, comes alive. Each step in life which increases my self-confidence, my integrity, my courage, my conviction also increases my capacityto choose the desireable alternative, until eventually it becomes more diffficult for me to choose the undesireable rather than the desireable action. On the other hand, each act of surrender and cowardice weakens me, opens the path for more acts of surrender, and eventually freedom is lost......

Most people fail in the art of living not because they are inherently bad or so without will that they cannot lead a better life; they fail because they do not wake up and see when they stand at a fork in the road and have to decide."


Amazingly profound insight into possibly how sin affects our decisions to choose righteousness continually.

God seemed to set the freedom before the people of Israel in the desert in Deuteronomy 11:27-28

"See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse:

the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am commanding you today;

and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today, by following other gods which you have not known. "

Still Alive and Flailing

Sorry about the delay guys but as work increases everything else seems to decrease. Which actually is i think going to be the theme of this piece. I am sure there have been many other trail-blazing-graduating-seniors-who-also-regret-a-liberal-arts-degree who have complained about this strange phase of entering into a "workforce" so hopefully im not just regurgitating whats already been said.

But this perspective i think needs to be explored a bit more. Adam screwed up and God's punishment to him was not only a spiritual death in loss of fellowship with infinite God, or promised physical death at some undisclosed point in the future, but on top of that a toiling the soil just to get by and suffice living. (Ladies got the blessing of pain in childbirth so i say lets call it even and move on)

But the latter punishment doesn't trump the first one, in fact it might make the first punishment that much worse. Not being able to find the same type of satisfaction in his work as he found in walking with God must have been the most frustrating thing for Adam to do. I imagine regret was something Adam was very fond of.

But how this plays into my own situation seems a bit different but altogether somewhat similar. God has ordained that we work in order to make ends me period. Even trust fund babies like Billy Madison have to had someone work at some point in time to cover their leisurely lifestyle. I can go into this dreaded reality knowing it won't provide me the same satisfaction that a dynamic infinite bride-bridegroom relationship can, but that still doesn't answer the question what should i do with my time?

In some sense anything i do that isn't sin is permissible. But i dont want my life to just be "permissible". If you guys haven't seen the Invisible Children documentary i insist you stop reading this and check it out at invisiblechildren.com. What i love about this film is that college-students not middle-aged crises corvette driving men, or desperate housewives but college kids who got a degree in something meaningless like me went on a trip to find substantial rich 2 scoops full of meaning. They came back with a terrible story of genocide, abduction, and child molestation but ITS REALITY. It's not country-club pretension, or mcdonalds, its real sufffering and real needs being met.

Dare i say there can and needs to be a natural flow between the substantial meaning i find fundamentally in Christ and the way it makes itself out into my own occupation? Should i get stoned for saying that?

(Open to Career Suggestions like a fat kid is open to the possibility that he is just big boned..no really give me a job)