It's Snowing

I’m in the process of surviving my first Seattle snowstorm.

The natives have told me that it’s rare to be snowing as much as it is. I’m currently stranded in a Korean church in Bothell, WA where we have many of our classes. Class has been out for about 4 hours. I might have to sleep here. My friend Justin and I had a snowball fight. This is awesome.

Requesting Drew's Presence on WitBrev

I thought that Drew was too busy to keep up with this blog, and that would have been fine, but by his own admission he doesn’t really do anything, so now I would like to offer him something to do.

I would like to request a post from you, Drew, as soon as possible. You should also post comments too. I know for a fact that you have lots of things to say, and I would like to invite you to say them here.

You’re a part of this shindig, and your voice has been sorely missed.

Who’s with me?

A Badass Bible

Matt and I were discussing the merits of badasses the other day, and the prospect of badasses in the Bible came up. Naturally, our thoughts bent towards the Old Testament. And lately, I have been reading 1st Samuel, so I suggested David as a Biblical badass. Matt suggested Saul. I laughed.

The reason I laughed is because, put simply, Saul was a wuss. Which, to me, is really, really funny. For a brief summary, the Israelites were getting cranky, as they did when they had it good, and asked for a king. God, being King of Kings, obviously was a little perturbed by this, so He told Samuel to anoint Saul. Now, Saul was tall and handsome, and in general, looked kingly. So, it comes time to announce to Israel who God has chosen for their king, and Samuel gives a speech on how this is a sin to ask for a king when they have God. Samuel steps off his soap box, the announcer comes over the loudspeaker, the drums roll, "Israel! Your new king is . . . . SAUL!" The light pans over to the right side of the stage and . . . *chirp chirp*. Saul is nowhere to be found. God tells Samuel that Saul is hiding behind some boxes. Samuel drags him out, and Israel realizes their new king is a wuss. This is God giving Israel the finger.

I love this scene. This is one of my favorites. Here is God messing with Israel, his chosen people, because they turned their back on him. Now, prior to this, God had done some pretty nasty stuff to Israel for forsaking Him (see the book of Exodus). But this was just brilliant. Not only does Israel not get a good king, they get a wuss. And Saul proves it over and over. When God said kill all the Amalekites and everything they owned, Saul spared King Agag and all the best of the livestock. Why did Saul disobey a direct order from God? Because that's what the soldiers wanted. So, once again (and another favorite scene of mine), God shows his wrath by telling Saul his lineage is no longer in line for the crown, and then He has Samuel hack Agag to pieces. Probably right in front of Saul, too.

Then, when Goliath comes calling the Israelites wusses, Saul basically agrees and sits in his tent. Then, David, probably shortly after he started growing his short and curlies, goes up to Saul, voice crackling, and says he'd like to fight Goliath. Does this inspire Saul to grab his sword and fight too? No. He gives David his armor! What a wuss! I mean, the only time he even shows he has a pair, is when he tries to kill David. But he misses with his spear. And then he misses again. And I think one more time. And each of these times, David was weaponless and playing his lute.

Now, Matt did later suggest Joshua. I suggested most, if not all, the judges. But I still think David is up there.

Anyway, all this to say that God has a great sense of humor, even when His chosen people have turned their backs on Him.



That, and Matt is wrong.

Selling out...

Jeremy Grey: ...What do you like better, Christmas or Wedding season? (Jeremy raises hand)

John: Mister Grey.

Jeremy: Yes, um...the answer would be um...wedding season?

John: Bingo...

****

In America, we like to gauge how old we are by how many birthdays we have seen. I think a much more accurate picture of your age is how many of your friend's weddings you have been to. And by this principle, I'm going to be three times older at the end of this month. During this month, I have the privilege of attending two weddings, and as of right now; it's one down and one to go. I've been told on numerous occasions that marriage is the most accurate metaphor we have for our relationship with God and because of that, weddings are supposed to be something beautiful.

Last Saturday, I attended my second real wedding. I was a friend of the bride and had known her for pretty much my whole life. We grew up in church together, and so many of our old church friends were at the wedding. It was wonderful and heart wrenching seeing old friends, because you get to see what they have become. But at the same time, you wonder if you will ever see these people again.

Since late in my college life, I have never been a guy that was concerned about whether they were ever going to get married. It seemed like most of my friends were much more concerned about this marriage thing I was, and I liked it that way. It's easier to be content and not feel insecure. Unfortunately, it was at this particular wedding that I started to get these scared, insecure, and "XX chromosome feelings." Maybe it was the realization that many of my not-witless-brevity-friends are in long-term relationships and/or engaged. Or maybe it was all of my mom's friends asking me whether I have a girlfriend or when I'm going to get married. Or maybe it was because I’m getting old. Or it could just be at weddings you get to see how incredibly beautiful it is when two people can commit themselves to each other forever.

Whatever it is, I did have these feelings. And I think I can finally empathize with the rest of my guy friends, and the whole girl population. Furthermore, I think finally realize why people want marriage. It's not the fear of dying alone, or even sex that brings us into marriage. It is idea behind marriage that makes us want it so badly. We do this marriage thing because of a tad bit of naivety and a whole lot of hope. We should know full well coming into marriage that we can’t come anywhere even close to God’s love and commitment, but yet we try. That, maybe, through our stupidity and his grace, his glory will be shown. And that maybe through the small fraction of beauty and goodness that flickers throughout a marriage, we can see a tiny proportion of God’s love, glory, grace, and beauty. Marriage really can be as beautiful as people say it should be.

Since that wedding, I don't think I will ever look at marriage with apathy again. It will instead strike anticipation, fear, and hope that perhaps sometime in the FAR distant future God will gracefully place someone in my life where I'll be able commit myself to her much like how God committed himself to me.

And then, I might better understand how beautiful and amazing that metaphor really is and praise him even more.

Matt

Squatties and knocking girls off mopeds

The difficulty of posting. I find that posting is rarely on the forefront of my mind here. I just don't think about it that often. The times I do I can't think of anything to say. So much of my life is not fit for print these days. Dont' get me wrong I wish I could just share everything with everyone. It's just not that easy. Never is.

So why am I posting tonight? I wanted to remain a part of this. I didn't want to give up on it. I don't want to give up on the however many of us there are plus Tiffany blog thing we have going. I was trying to think of funny stories to tell, but they just seem to lack.

I went for a 15 or so mile bike ride to this store out in the boonies with a friend of mine. It was a cool camping store, but after like 5 seconds of walking around I had to go to the bathroom really bad. That's a bad condition to be in 8-10 miles out from home and at a store with unknown bathroom conditions and no personal load of toilet paper. Luckily even in the slighty ridiculous situations God provides. It's a weird place when you're thankful, so so so thankful for a nice squatty. These it turned out were top of the line, full height stalls! With doors! And yes, God even let them deem it a good idea to include some paper towels in the hand rinsing area (washing implies soap).

A day in the life. They don't mention that in those this is where I live videos do they? Nor do they mention the peril you place other people by bringing your Western mentality and driving abilities to the far side of the world.

This girl was making a crazy wide turn on her moped thing and I was flying on my bike and she was about to pinch me against the wall. Well what could I do? It was me or her and I didn't want to fall on my face, so I kicked her moped and made her spin out and crash.

That's what she would have said if I had stopped to ask if she was alright. I think there is still some shock when I ride by unsuspecting mopeds. One I'm really white. That's not normal here. Two I'm going faster than them and bike's don't go faster than motorized vehicles right? I always forget that part. Anyway she was swerving into me and was going to pinch me against the little wall to keep us from spilling out into the street. So I whistled somewhat loudly to draw her attention to the collision course we were on. (My options in retrospect were to slow down or stop or be crushed). I don't think of the stopping option very often. So she notices me and jerks away really fast, unfortunately her front tire was already colliding with my foot and my velocity and her turning the bike caused my foot to accelerate the rate at which her front tire was turning to the right, causing a sudden deceleration and a sort of falling over motion.

A quick sorry and I'm was off again. I was going even faster so she wouldn't catch up with me, thank goodness she didn't. That'd be really awkward.

See what I mean, these stories don't feel as funny as they do when you lived through them. I could be wrong, I hope you see the humor. I miss you guys. I'm still here.