I Can See a Lot of Life in You.

Honesty

2009-08-03T14:59:00.000-07:00

Wilco - You and I

You and I
We might be strangers
However close we get sometimes
It's like we never met

But you and I
I think we can take it
All the good with the bad
Make something no one else has but

You and I
You and I

Me and you
What can we do?
When the words we use sometimes
Are misconstrued?

I won't guess
What's coming next
I can't ever tell

You're the deepest well I've ever fallen into

Oh I don't wanna know
Oh I don't wanna know
Oh I don't need to know
Everything about you

Oh I don't wanna know
And you don't need to know
That much about me

You and I
We might be strangers
However close we get sometimes
It's like we never met

But you and I
I think we can take it
All the good with the bad
And make something no one else has but

You and I

2009-07-24T09:58:00.001-07:00

Alexander Solzhenitsyn said: “The line between good and evil is not drawn between nations and parties, but through every human heart.”

Prayer and repetition

2009-07-10T21:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya46wfeWqJk&feature=related
Listen carefully from 1:10 - 1:50.
Were the Greeks and Derrida on to something? Are we like Echo in our worship, stringing together the glimpses we have of God into some small response of love for Him?

Blogs

2009-07-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

Blogs are not the most effective way of building community. They disembody us, make us ghosts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CZaXwdj7u4
I am a man, in a body, and embodied language is my primary method of communication.

Beach

2009-06-23T21:54:00.001-07:00

I'm at Huron Feathers now, a Presbyterian Church Centre & Day Camp in Sauble Beach, Ontario.
It's really good. But I miss everything.
I'm reading "A Secular Age" by Charles Taylor.
If anyone loves beaches and visiting, shoot me an email before you leave for Sauble and we'll hang, deal?
This isn't normal for me.

Crammin'

2009-03-03T07:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMrPjl-927Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htwkRYa0gOk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_S-Mijm9gQ&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJNCqkKJbBc
If you've got the time, watch a few of these.

Dunking has become such a huge status symbol. Ask any grade 10 basketball player and they will tell you how much they want to dunk. It's quite the feeling. Success in sports is euphoria - you've beaten the game, you've not cheated but you've completely dominated your opponent (if you really have time, look up some David Beckham free kicks). Sometimes, basketball seems like such a timewaster, but your whole self flourishes - has shalom - and sings praises - when you dunk. I've been doing a lot of leg presses lately.

Ballin'

2009-02-02T06:23:00.000-08:00

I really dig coaching basketball. Tonight, and tomorrow night, and the night after that we have games. If we lose any of them, we are out of the playoffs.

Understanding sports is tough - it's such a passionate cultural phenomenon, and thus has plenty of potential to be used for Gods glory, but an equal amount of potential to be abused. If you think about it, basketball is just two groups of guys each trying to throw a ball through a hoop more times than the other group can throw the ball through the hoop. And that's fun. That's a game. But as soon as you decide that you want to get the ball through the hoop more than other teams on a consistent basis, against very good competition, basketball becomes a whole lot more than that. I don't know if that is what makes it a sport or not. Maybe someday I'll understand. In the interim, I'll coach as best as I know how.

People say that it's not about whether you win or lose, it's about having fun. Well, I have more fun when I win.

2008-12-26T19:46:00.000-08:00

Christmas

There is a rusty and bent bedrail hammered into the ground to mark the northeast corner of my parents' property. Sometimes I stand on a little pile of dirt beside it and listen to the night silence when I get home late. Tonight, as I stood there I thought about what the world would be like if the sun went out - poof. I could survive in my house with the propane in our tank for a week, and eat some of the food we have. But it would be only a little while before the planet was a ball of ice. I was also thinking about the sun, and whether or not it really exists, or if God puts it in the sky every day, along with the stars, nebulae, and other things we humans have seen out there. All we can do to prove their existence is see them with our eyes - and what if our eyes lie? What if it's all a cosmic trick? A sense-experience Imax film played in our brains?

All this existential wandering happened on Christmas Night, which I think is cool, because part of the mystery of Christmas is faith. Are we really supposed to believe that Jesus Christ lived, died, rose, and mattered? On what evidence? The Word of God? It can be shredded by all kinds of criticism. Our own experience? My short 19 years have taught me that my senses are far less reliable than I give them credit for. So what am I doing? Am I a Christian or a fideist?

A Christian. I can't prove it to you, but this Christian story - it's true. God give me strength to live it.

May you meet the living Word this Christmas.

Love, Ben

I removed this from my blog because posting it on Christmas felt so unholy.

Postmoderns Are People Too.

2008-12-06T19:10:00.000-08:00

This is one video on youtube that I would watch even if Ryan rolled his eyes at me. I don't think it would get me that token gang of friends gathering around me in the library to laugh at something mildly funny, but I still recommend watching it. If the name Derrida means anything to you, feel free to head on down to the end of this post, ignore my poor introduction to him, and click the link.

See, here's the deal. Jacques Derrida (the man in the clip) is probably the most important postmodern philosopher. His work concerns meaning - he tries to ask the question if any part of our lives really means anything, especially books and conversations. He is also the name most people associate with deconstruction, a technique for interpreting text which he believes is capable of stripping the text of all meaning. For Derrida, life has no meaning, but is a dance, a play, an undoing of the past and a knitting together of the present.

As a Christian, it's hard to accept Derrida as a good philosopher. It's impossible for me to tell you exactly why, but here's my best attempt: YHWH is the meaning and the source of life, and history is His Story. So working to undo the meaning we have in our life seems foolish in the true sense of the word (Psalm 14:1). And working towards a place where no words have meaning does not seem smart for a man who attempts to make his living selling books and giving speeches. Derrida seems unenviable, he is convinced that the world has no meaning other than the meaning assigned to it by humans. The only problem with this is that now his words themselves can be doubted.

Maybe it's more easily expressed with an example: if one person says: "everyone can create his or her own truth", he is not able to argue his position against a person who says: "There is such a thing as absolute truth." For the first person to argue would be for him to say that there is something that is true for both people; namely, his opinion. Derrida finds himself in a similar predicament.

The fact that he is in this predicament may make this video mean less, because Derrida is simply playing his game, building and then destroying even his own arguments to keep the dance going even at the cost of his own credibility. But you have to appreciate the humanity with which he expresses himself. It makes postmodern philosophy seem so attractive.

Sorry for keeping you all waiting. The video is available here.
Love, Ben

Anger.

2008-12-02T14:41:00.001-08:00

Anger is an emotion. I feel it sometimes. A lot of the time my anger is pointed at some abstract thing. It's kind of like I need something to be angry about all the time. If I stop being angry with the fact that people are killed and women are raped and that the world is broken, I find myself being angry with things closer to home: basketball, philosophy, particular people who are friends but who I disagree with, and who are distant enough for me to be angry at them and never be forced to resolve the problems, because I don't see them often enough to see the tangible, physical effects of a broken relationship - the harsh body language, the chill running up the spine, the hole in the chest.

The thing is, most of my anger is sustained by space between people. If we were closer together, we could do something about fixing the issues, even if our only motivation was that the issues had more tangible effect.

Today though, I was honestly angry, at someone who was standing beside me, and who I had to deal with that instant. I had just gotten to "The Seer's Tower" on Illinoise, and was enjoying it in my subconscious, when a security guard tapped me on the shoulder and woke me up, telling me to go take a nap in my dorm. Who the heck wakes someone who is enjoying a nap on a decent couch in the only quiet part of the school? Seriously.

My anger needs to be directed. I tell the team I coach that they need to direct their passion and energy into good defense and good offense. Somehow anger has to lead me to constructive action. Which seems a really dumb thing to say, since we're not talking about rage and fury here, just annoyance. But annoyance is probably an alright thing to harness too.

There, I did it. My annoyance was fuel for the first blog post on here in a few months. Great blog, eh?

Love, Ben

One thing I am not mad about:

2008-11-03T06:27:00.001-08:00

Filling up my gas tank for less than $40. And that's all!

Thing 1.

2008-10-27T08:17:00.001-07:00

Hermeneutics is about rules of interpretation. This is the simplest one I can think of:
God is both creator and poet.

Philosophy.

2008-10-16T18:36:00.000-07:00

The day after I thought philosophy was useless:
This
And, the day after I started thinking that there is no opportunity for a person like me to use philosophy:
This
I have to figure out what I'm going to write about/if I'm going to do it, but the privilege of speaking to such an audience would be like nothing I've ever experienced before.

Big Question # 1

2008-10-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

Who are we?

(taken from James Sire's Universe Next Door)

A.F. + B.O. = B.F.F.

2008-09-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

With everyone going insane over Barack Obama, I can't help but feel that he's going to take over the world. I imagine that this is what Hitler was like before people realized he was a maniac. But, I wasn't around back then so I can say nothing for sure. And, the fact that Barack seems to be a darling candidate may just be a lie of the media. Perhaps he is benign and popular. Perhaps he is malicious and popular.

Arcade Fire's Win Butler says "Barack is the first candidate in my lifetime to strip some of this bullshit away, and I just hope we don't blow this chance."

Arcade Fire is the type of rock band that seems infallible, that can almost do no wrong. Everything I hear about them is good, and their music is very good. Perhaps they are benign, partly Canadian, and popular. Perhaps they are malicious, partly American, and popular.

Roots and anchors and things that hold us in one place.

2008-09-02T10:11:00.001-07:00

Roots Day in the Park is coming in only 4 days! I'm dreadfully excited, and scared. It's the first thing that Mieke, Ben, Kristen, Justine, Amber, Aaron, Sarah, Garnet, Dan and I will try to do as a group for other people, and that's scary stuff somehow. None of us are perfect, but for 6 hours on Saturday we are responsible for a buttload of people's bodies, minds, and in part, souls. It's the souls thing that's scaring me most - just because I'm supposed to figure out a way to lead all these people. And as I go from work to school, from "ickle firsty" to second year, from summer to fall, from not having Youth Group to having Youth Group, I can't help but get a drifty-changy feeling. (see also Justine's latest)

This transient feeling is not new, just more intense than normal. And the intensity scares me because I'm planning to talk about roots, anchors, and things that hold us in one place at the Roots Day. How the heck do I encourage others to understand what God has done for them when by my life I show that I don't really care?

I think that God's grace is huge in that He takes people that Satan is fighting tooth and nail to claim, and makes them trophies of grace. God polishes us up, makes us all nice and shiny, engraves His Name on us, and sticks us in His trophy case. And then God probably trash talks Satan (Job 1:8).
If you won't admit that you're broke, God probably won't fix you.

At least, that's how I think it goes.

Peace + Love, Ben

I am / living in this house / this house!

2008-07-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

Here's some photos of my crib for the summer, if you haven't been to visit yet. And, what are you waiting for? Let me know when you're coming over.

Front view, with Accordion.

Perennials left over from the previous owners.

Vegetable garden! and carrot! Yumm-o!

Front view from the roof

Hamilton from the roof! + trampoline! + backyard!

So, that's that! I like living here, with these guys. It's interesting that we are at the edge of suburbia - There is a horse farm in front of us and a subdivision behind us. There is also a large white sign in front of this house that tells anyone who cares that an application has been submitted to the City of Hamilton for the house's destruction. 5 subdivision boxes will be on this property in 4 years. I don't know how that makes me feel, but I know that I am thankful to have spent the last 3 months here.

Busy.

2008-07-15T20:32:00.000-07:00

I hate being busy. It doesn't really accomplish all that much.
To make up for it, I put a Muskoka chair on my roof and I drink my beer there.
That's all.

Realism:

2008-06-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

When I'm in a pine box, people will read the internet and say: "Wow. Grampa was cool. He wrote a blog! How endearing and soulful."

Actually, that was a lie.

When I open the cigar box full of old stuff I got from my Grampa, I get goosebumps. When people dust off their Macbooks 80 years from now and type www.benbouwman.blogspot.com into that crazy old thing they used to use called Firefox, will they get goosebumps at the garbage I write here? Doubt it.

I need to leave something behind that will yellow with age, that people will have to dig up and dust off, that they will be able to physically store and treasure, not look up on the internet every once in a while.

But who really cares? It's all going to burn anyway; that's what mom always says when Aunt Margaret talks on and on blah blah blah about her next addition to her collection of antique collections. Then Aunt Margaret goes red in the face, pours another glass of wine and says: "Yes that's true - But I love to have a Coll-eck-shun!"

I am an Aunt-like figure who has had far too much wine and who yells at the top of her lungs "I LOVE TO HAVE A COLLECTION!" until her nephew wishes that either he was not obliged to sit at the table with her or he was Harry Potter and could make her inflate.

Thoreau says that poor people are actually rich because they can do with less. He is right about that.

Life is Beautiful

2008-06-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

You plant a rose
And if the rose comes up
You're thankful to God
And when it doesn't you cuss him
You raise a child
And when the child grows up
You got to learn to let go
If you can't learn to love him
But, oh, what a beautiful thing when you sing
Hear all them bells ringing out in the street
Hammer strikes the metal and it makes me believe
'Cause if I don't believe in love
Then I don't believe in you
And I do

Now I'm not saying only bad news comes
For the people who want it
But you gotta play that music for who's listening
You got to have someone you wanna sing it to
Oh, what a beautiful thing when you sing
Hear all them bells ringing out in the street
Blue sky cracking and it makes me believe
Oh, hear all them bells ringing out in the street
Hammer strikes the metal and it makes me believe
'Cause if I don't believe in love
Then I don't believe in you
And I do

Close my eyes, see the glorious sunset
Through the windows of a store and I want it
Anyway, if I ever felt haunted
You were there for me
These angry people who are waiting to judge you
Have their own judgment that they'll have live up to
Open your mouth
And if nothing come through
Remember
You're the one that sings
And it's a gift
And life's a beautiful thing
Oh, don't waste it doll
You build a house and if the house comes up
You gotta work on that house
If you want to make it your home
'Cause everything inside that's not something you own
Is what you're taking with you
On the day that you go
And oh, what a beautiful world when we sing
Hear all them bells ringing out in the street
Hammer strikes the metal and it makes me believe
Hear all them bells ringing out in the street
Oh, hammer strikes the metal and it makes me believe
'Cause if I don't believe in love
Then I don't believe in you
And I do

Ryan Adams is a good singer and guitar player and writer. Someday, if I work up the courage, I might review his album "Cold Roses" on this site. It's maybe my favourite album ever.

Ora et Labora.

2008-05-14T17:58:00.000-07:00

Mr. Jongsma had two favourite sayings: "Haste Makes Waste" & "Ora et Labora". On the first day of Grade 7 he had written the latter on the board in chalk and explained in his beautiful Dutch accent that "Ora" meant "speak" or "pray" and "Labora" meant "Work" - in Latin. I was immediately turned off because he knew Latin and because he was old and because he made us underline the title and dates on our notes twice in red pen, and because he made us call him "Sir" instead of "Mr. Jongsma" and because I was more interested in flirting with the girl who sat near me in Spelling, so I disregarded his words for most of my life since then.

This summer has been one in which "Ora et Labora" is what I have had no choice but to live. In the past, my work has become self-centred and poor, but with prayer, it is going much better this year! In the past, my prayer has made me apathetic and ignorant of the value of earth (Platonist), but with work, I am seeing God's hand guiding my life and blessing my actions!

This is life: Ora et Labora. Trust and Fight. Give control to God and fight for His will. See the big picture but value your own desires. I am like the newbie in tightrope walking school - I need guiding hands and a big rod to help me maintain balance, but by the grace of God I am working on it.

Yeah, by the grace of God I am working.

If you know me...

2008-04-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!
Today I had a "study day" for my philosophy exam tomorrow. If you know me, you will know that I deeply enjoy philosophy. However, if you know me, you will also know that I dislike studying for exams, especially on days with weather like we had today. So, as I read through information I'm supposed to know about Plato, Aristotle, Kierkegaard, Augustin, Aquinas, and others, I found myself looking for something else to do.
If you know me, you will likely have been a passenger in my car, The Accordion, at one point or another. You will also have noticed that cleaning said automobile is not high on my list of Things I Love, in fact one could say that it would be on the list of Things I Don't Make Time To Do, or even the list of Things I Hate Doing. Regardless, I thought of how such a beautiful day as this would be the best sort of day for this cleaning, as it's better to be outside cleaning a car on a day like today than say, a day when it is minus 20 degrees outside, like most of the other seasons we have here in Canada.
I washed the outside of my car, and as I finished I thought of how painful it would be to go inside and study after enjoying such beautiful weather for an hour. The next course of action was obvious - I had to clean the inside of my car. Cleaning the inside of my car is a very special event as it usually only happens once per annum, and last year my car was graciously given it's cleaning by Kira, Anton, and Justine. This was a deeply interesting experience, as I'm sure you can well imagine if you know me. Passengers in my car are likely to notice the wonderfully varied amount of interesting objects that populate its interior (translation: it's full of crap). Here follows a non-exhaustive list of some of the things I found in my car today, and stories about how they came to be there:

1 flashlight - suitable for campfires, reading things at night, and other dark situations.
1 pair broken aviator sunglasses - given to me by Tyler, one arm is broken off, but they still stay on my face, so I use them in situations of extreme brightness (Note that the first two objects equip me for activities in all light levels. Talk about being prepared.)
1 tube toothpaste - I always forget toothpaste when I go to camp, and the solution was clear: permanently store toothpaste in my car!
2 tape measures - stolen from my brother's truck because tape measures are the rarest commodity at Thor Stone Construction.
1 sculpture of a human figure in the fetal position - given to me by Kira, it says "pretzel" on the back, referring to my habit of curling up and falling asleep on the couches of friends.
2 chapstick - one for curing dry, chapped lips, and one for rigging up my iPod connection so it does not fuzz out and wreck the music in my car every two seconds.
1 tennis ball - found on the way to Steve, Willem, and Matt's house, useful for various games at school during procrastination.
1 water gun - duh?
1 button - picture of Tecumseh is on it. From Kira.
1 toy guy - from Kira's house, we took him on photographic journey to Hamilton but didn't take any pictures of him. Poor guy.
1 stuffed moose - bought him in Algonquin park about 6 years ago, looks awfully cute in my rearview mirror.
1 pair pliers - useful for repairs, for hammering things with, and for twisting the heat-control knob (which is sadly broken) to control the air temperature in my car. Little flaws like these are what give The Accordion her character.
1 bottle 2% xylocaine - dental numbing agent given to me by Neal, useful for pranks on sleeping victims.
2 McDonald's stuffed figures - Named Wib and Jacoba Fisher.
1 disused portable c.d. player.
Numerous notes, letters, confidential documents and tax return papers. All from people I love, like friends, family, Student Senate, and the Canada Revenue Agency.
1 first aid kit.
1 package Del Monte Apple juice - for emergencies.
1 granola bar - for emergencies.
2 Bibles.
2 pairs of work jeans.
1 pair work boots.
1 pair dress shoes.
1 pair basketball shoes.
1 tub Duncan Hines chocolate icing - I gave up coffee for Lent so I kept this in my car for long car rides at night. When I felt prone to doze off, I would simply eat a spoonful of icing- better than coffee!
1 broken compass/binocular/mirror/magnifying glass/all-round survival device - in case I am not lost and I want to be lost, or I want to see something far away without just driving there, or I want to check my reflection without using the other 5 mirrors surrounding me when I'm in my car, or I want to examine something small, or I want to live in the woods and be a wild-man.
1 dinner plate from the Lodder's house.
2 matching green towels - I didn't like Hitchhikers Guide much, but I learned to carry a towel (or two) wherever I go.
1 Royal costume - from Roots conference, includes blue blazer, gold threaded sash, and extra-short beige pants.
1/2 jug Quaker state motor oil - My car loves this stuff. So much that it leaks it every once in a while.
1 ice scraper - because who really feels like carrying it all the way inside in April, and all the way back outside in November?
1 Carey Price bobblehead - free from a Bulldogs game! Woohoo! I'm hoping to sell this thing on Ebay for $15000 someday.
3 handbooks for organizations/events - TrueCity, Zion Youth Group, and Faithworks Kentucky Trip.
1 raincoat
2 battery powered glow sticks - both of these are from friends, one from Beka at a mini-putt extravaganza, and one from Neal, the World's Most Amazing Secret Friend for 2007.
2 copies "The Letter To The Hebrews" - one is mine, the other says "Helder" in the front. Uhh, I wonder where that came from. Sorry Joel!
30 pens, pencils, or Sharpies - useful for writing things, which I guess is good because I want to be a writer. Interesting thing though: I didn't purchase 90% of these pens. People bum rides from me, their pens fall out of their pockets, and are claimed by me as a replacement for gas money. Essentially, anything that falls out of your pockets and that you don't claim within one (1) business day is considered a replacement for gas money, or a charitable donation to my existence. Unfortunately, no tax receipts can be issued. I don't at all feel badly about this policy, because most of the stuff people leave in my car is garbage, not useful at all. I think that all in all, when you consider the costs I must pay to dispose of the garbage that is left in my car, I am justified in taking whatever cool stuff is left there as well. (If you've lost anything you really need in my car, I'll give it back, I promise.)
1 cell phone - to everyone who has complained to me about how impossible it is to contact me because I haven't got a cell phone, fret your souls no longer! I have found a cell phone in my car today! If you ever need to call me for anything, my number is Ryan's old cell phone's number.
Hundreds of signatures, notes, drawings, and other stuff written in Sharpie on the ceiling - My favourite part of my car! Be sure to make your mark if we ever get to drive anywhere together.

So, if you find yourself in need of any of the aforementioned items, please don't hesitate to let me know!
Grace + Peace, Ben

What I'm Thinking About:

2008-04-21T07:30:00.001-07:00

Don't grow up too fast.

Wisdom:

2008-04-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

Perseverance conquers doubt.
-C.G.
God never leaves us alone.
-L.P.
Mature service is mothered by a passionate heart and fathered by intentional action.

Hold Me!

2008-04-07T12:53:00.001-07:00

Normally I don't post lyrics of songs because I think they make annoying blog posts, especially if everyone else already knows the lyrics. But, I'm humbled.

Well, sometimes my life
Just don't make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It's so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart

Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight You for something
I don't really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I've beat my head against so many walls
Now I'm falling down, I'm falling on my knees

And this Salvation Army band
Is playing this hymn
And Your grace rings out so deep
It makes my resistance seem so thin

You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace.

-Rich Mullins

Beautiful:

2008-03-31T06:44:00.000-07:00

Iron & Wine in the rain.
Forgiveness and healing, between God and humanity and between brothers and sisters.
Reverend Bosch's infectious passion.
Waves at Burlington beach.
Mom & Dad.
The mirror; look in it!

It's over!

2008-03-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

ROOTS Conference 2008 is officially in the books! What a crazy experience, seeing 4 months of planning become fruitful in two and a half short days. Thanks to my church for its support, to Emmanuel Youth Group, to the YCC, to everyone who came, and to God, whose love was a banner over us.

Highlights: Jesus Christ, good food, fun games, challenging speakers. Being an idiot in front of a lot of people.

Getting fash-on, ya?

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Love, Ben

One Quick Pun, Sorry.

2008-03-17T10:57:00.000-07:00

What do orcs put into their cars?

Mordor Oil.

-Ben Lootens & Ben Bouwman

Beauty Continued

2008-03-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

In an effort to learn what beauty is, I'm making a list:
Beautiful things:
Snowball fights with anyone who wants to join, and with the computer science guys who went up on the roof and attacked us from there.
The ways one's hands hurt after snowball fights.
Some people's voices, when they know how to sing really well.
Sufjan: "Chicago","Casimir Pulaski Day".
Harmony.
Guitar.
Music.

Thanks, Ben

Beauty Matters

2008-03-06T08:35:00.001-08:00

Beauty is so very important, but it's hard to know why.

I feel a little embarrassed about the last post here, I have a lot more to learn before I talk about art and beauty in a meaningful way.

Sorry.

Art Matters.

2008-02-27T17:54:00.000-08:00

Today, watching that yellow and red face sink below the horizon. Wondering: "Does knowledge of the artist affect my love for the art?". Sky looks beautiful - if it was painted it would look like a romanticized sunset (is that possible?) and I would not like the painting. But it's God's art, and I know that it's real - there is no mimesis here. That's why it is beautiful.

Why does knowledge of the artist make me love their art a little more? Am I surprised that people in my life are extremely talented? If you can express yourself, keep going! One of my best friends recently answered the question: "What is your greatest fear?" with "not being able to express myself." I'm learning that that is an important fear, because expression is part of the deep soul God has given us. Part of being made in God's image is expression, and I'm trying to be open to expressing the goodness of God to anyone who is listening.

Basketball

2008-02-14T13:06:00.000-08:00

I played basketball for a few hours this afternoon, and I really am thinking about trying out again next year.

This is a scary idea for me, because at the beginning of last year I decided I was done with competitive basketball for the rest of my life - Senate and school were going to be my focus. But playing this afternoon with some close friends and some not-so close-friends has kind of opened my eyes to the possibility that God may have more ideas for me and basketball.

Here's one of the defining conversations of my life and as a bonus, my first attempt at playwriting!

Mr. Sharpe and Ben Bouwman take a cab home from Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute after another loss. It's night, it's raining, and they are talking.

Mr. Sharpe (jamming Ben's legs with his seat) - "Oh! Sorry Ben... I didn't mean to break those sticks of legs you've got.

Cabbie laughs.

Ben - "That's alright sir, I'm ok.

Mr. Sharpe - "I guess you don't need them anyway, you never dunk. You could have made some serious impressions for All-Star selection tonight if you managed to finish some of that stuff on the baseline -- Conroy was there, you know.

Ben - "Yeah, I guess.

Silence for a few minutes, Ben and his coach are arriving at St. James.

Ben - "Mr. Sharpe, do you think God cares about basketball?

Mr. Sharpe -"Of course he does! It's his favourite sport!

Ben - "How do you know?

Mr. Sharpe - ". . ."

I don't know what happened that night. Look up "Bob Sharpe" on a Canadian basketball website, and you'll find some impressive statistics - All Canadian, Olympian, Canadian Basketball Hall of Famer. Look up "Ben Bouwman" and you will likely find nothing. Maybe it was his impressive record colliding with my poor one, his theology colliding with mine, his god colliding with mine.

Does God care about basketball? Answer me please, whether or not you are athletically gifted!

Good Morning!

2008-02-04T07:33:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm struggling with Plato and Christianity and my philosophy class and C.S. Lewis and heaven.

Is earth a copy of heaven, a flawed and sinful copy? Is the New Earth heaven? Is there time in heaven? Will contemplating the Forms in heaven get me any closer to truth? Is earth something I have to escape?

Am I emotionally weak for crying while reading "The Last Battle"?

Is everything true? Is there reason for believing what I believe beyond meaning for life? What if meaning for life doesn't really mean all that much anyway?

Dag, I missed Philosophy last semester.

N.B.

2008-01-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

"And then our skin gets thicker from livin' out in the cold"
Canadian music is my favourite. Canada is my favourite.

Photos!

2008-01-10T19:33:00.000-08:00

My family is completely and fully a gift from God, a challenge, and a grace I can never praise God enough for.

This is my Mom, my Dad, and me, almost 19 years ago. My mom's dress style hasn't yet come in fashion, but my dad is feeling a pretty cool indie rock look. (Unfortunately I think he's thrown out the excellent red pullover, but the mustache may make an appearance for him sometime again.)

As promised, here's the mustache:
My Dad working out, with my help. (The early 90's striped sweater is en vogue again too! hooray for fashion!) This is my favourite picture of Dad.

With Brent Vanderveen, my brother, growing up on the beach at Killbear. "The beach is that way."

Yes Ben, I do have the muscle development of an 8 year old girl.

Here's My brother Derek and I, at a cottage he worked on for many months. As you can see, this is a photo of the stage in my life in which a great deal of hair was needed, for the obvious purpose of rocking out.

Rocking out.

My family, as of this summer. There are a few new additions...

Because.

2007-12-22T13:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my second snowboarding experience.
Pain to fun ratio:
1: 500.
The post below ("Why?") is now retracted.
Love, Ben

We're Going to the Country!

2007-12-17T12:28:00.000-08:00

Wildlife sightings for my walk today:
4 horses
5 motor vehicles
14 wild turkeys

I can't deny it, I'm a hick. I think it's obvious when a person is a hick - his walk includes more wild turkeys than cars. I love my house in the country, and when I move, I will miss it terribly. I feel called to the city (see post below) but am thankful for the beauty around me here, now.

Was there a reason Jesus was born outside of his hometown, and even in the country outside of Bethlehem? I don't know, but I think there might be a connection.

"If you seek a pillow for your head
Or a fitted sheet for Christmas bed
If you see your shadow on the snow
Is it from the baby Jesus glow?
He's going to the country

Find a tree and put in your house
Put a misletoe upon your mother's blouse
If you see woman dressed in black
Give her up a song and then ask for it back
We're going to the the country
We're going to the country
You're going to the country
We're going to the country
The country!"

-Sufjan Stevens "We're Going to the Country!"

On a more personal note,

2007-12-13T12:58:00.001-08:00

I haven't left my house today. I've been napping and reading "My Name is Asher Lev." What a wonderful day.

Merry Christmas, Sarajevo.

2007-12-13T10:05:00.000-08:00

In my exploration of Christmas this year, the following has been profound and telling.

"For as long as I can remember, my family has celebrated Christmas. It was a social rather than religious event that we always looked forward to, especially as children. A few days before Christmas, my mother would have a big party, inviting her friends over and serving eggnog and shortbread cookies. On Christmas Eve, we would read 'Twas the night before Christmas' and, before going to sleep, hang empty socks next to the fireplace and leave, for Santa, a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. The next morning we got up early and opened stockings full of trinkets that our mother-turned-Santa had substituted for the empty socks. The glass of milk would be depleted, and most of the cookies would be gone, proof that Santa had come and nourished himself in our home. Our mother would remind us during breakfast to save room for the big turkey lunch we would eat in a few hours, and after rushing upstairs to brush our teeth and wash our faces, we opened the presents piled under the Christmas tree. We made a few concessions to the fact that we were Jews celebrating a Christian holiday; the tree was topped with a non-denominational star rather than a replica of Jesus, and we did not go to any church services. Otherwise, it was a typical American Christmas, down to the three-log fire in the fireplace even if the weather was warm, as it usually was in Los Angeles. If necessary, we would turn on the air conditioner.
I think of Christmases past, and of my Christmas in Sarajevo, and I am tempted to classify them as poles apart. In one, there is abundance and peace and love, and in the other, hunger and warfare and hatred. But the more I think about it, the more I find that the Christmases are similar, and that if I had to select one in which the spirit of the occasion reached its fullest expression, I would select my Christmas in Sarajevo, because that's where I found miracles.
The parishioners of St. Anthony's Church were deprived of the right to attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve, because the wartime curfew meant they had to be home before ten o'clock, and at any time of day a packed church would be an inviting target for the Serbs in the hills, like a red cape waved in front of a bull. So they made do. At four in the afternoon, they crammed into the church's basement chapel, winter coat to winter coat, standing because there was no room for sitting, and as the temperature quickly rose, and the room took on the heavy smell of damp wool, everyone started to perspire, but nobody cared, for this was far preferable to the cold outside. A choir sang hymns from the back of the basement, and everyone joined in when it was time, creating harmony beyond music.
The main defense mechanism of the people in Sarajevo was to stand together, helping one another out, because no one else would. Suffering does much to bring people together and coax out the good in them, making a hero out of an office worker who, in normal times, would not help an old woman cross the street, but in wartime runs into a street at the risk of his own life to save her from sniper fire. The man might be a Muslim, the woman a Croat. It no longer mattered, for they were in it together, just as they were in the basement chapel together, Muslims, Croats, Serbs, Jews. If you wanted to find the Christmas spirit on Christmas Eve in 1992, you could do no better than to visit St. Anthony's Church in Sarajevo.
The priest's name was Ljubo Lucic. He had no altar to stand on, so only a lucky few in the front rows could see him and the sickly Christmas tree behind him; it had been scavenged from the forests at the front line, and it looked every bit as malnourished as the parishioners to whom it was supposed to deliver good cheer. Father Lucic told his flock that they were getting an insight into Jesus that few others had; the terror in their lives was like the terror of Jesus' life; their poverty was no different from Jesus'; and Jesus was a refugee, cast from one town to another. I could see people wiping tears from their eyes, out of sadness or happiness. Perhaps Father Lucic heard the soft sobs and worried about them, for he suddenly said, almost in desperation, "The Christmas message in our situation is that life is worth living, no matter what."
There is a tradition in Sarajevo that people of different religions visit one another on religious holidays. On Christmas, the Pelzls' Muslim and Serb friends would come by for a visit. In turn, the Pelzls would visit their Muslim friends on the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, and visit their Serb friends on Orthodox Christmas, which falls in January. Kevin, Dzemal and I were part of the parade of visitors who stopped by the Pelzl household on Christmas Day. After shedding our flak jackets at their doorstep, we sat down at their dining table and were served a platter of sweets, which were unimaginable delicacies under the circumstances.
The Pelzls lived in a building not far from the Holiday Inn, within shouting distance of the front line, and they kept count of the number of direct mortar hits on their building, which was nine, if I recall correctly. Several people had been injured. The Pelzls were untouched, although bits of shrapnel and a sniper bullet or two had crashed through their windows and and struck the living room, leaving the sort of holes you get when you try to drive a nail into a wall and succeed only in making a mess of chipped plaster. A small statue of the Virgin Mary stood on a table in a corner, presided over by one such shrapnel hole, an ironic halo of sorts. Mary's serene smile seemed a bit mischievous.
The Christmas preparations had been under way for three months, with military precision, as though the family was planning an ambush rather than a meal. Food had been salted away since August, when they collected nuts for the baklava. Smoked ham that a friend gave them in November had been put aside in a kitchen cabinet, the only meat in the house, delectable and untouchable. Wood was stocked up to ensure that there would be enough fuel for baking, and money was saved so that, a few days before Christmas, Janja could buy eggs on the black market for her sweets. She had been able to buy four. Traditionally, the family's big Christmas Eve dinner was centred around fresh fish from Janja's hometown of Bodanski Brod, along the Sava River, but it had been captured by Serbs early in the war, and in any event fresh fish was a laughable impossibility in Sarajevo, so the family made do with canned tuna fish.
On Christmas morning, Karlo and Janja went to mass at separate churches. It had nothing to do with a marital spat or preferences for different priests. They were afraid that if they went to the same church, and if it was bombed, their children would be left without parents. They lessened the odds of this happening by splitting up; one of them might get killed but probably not both. This passed as normal behaviour in Sarajevo. Parents rarely went outdoors together. If, by chance, they had to leave home at the same time but for different destination, perhaps one going to work, the other searching for food, they would not step outside at the same time. One would stay behind and wait until the other was far enough ahead so that a single shell could not kill both of them.
The discussion turned to faith. Times of tragedy test a believer's faith in God, and the worst tragedy of all was being inflicted in Bosnia, so I put a blunt question to my hosts. How can you believe in a God who permits such things to happen? Karlo and Janja smiled with self-confidence, as though they expected the question and knew it was not rhetorical but came from my heart. I was not interested in starting a theological debate, for that ground has been plowed many times before by people far more learned than any of us in that apartment, and no one had yet come up with a bullet-proof answer, and never would. But I wanted to know their answer.
Janja, who had been quiet, spoke up, and as she did so, she looked at the statue of the Virgin Mary.
"I believe more strongly than before," she said. "I can't explain why, but I have more faith now. I pray more, I believe more, and I believe that this is God's will."
Even now, after a long time has passed, I can't decide whether her answer was touching or insane."

-Peter Maass, in "Love Thy Neighbor, a Story of War."

Sorry for the excessive length.

Why?

2007-12-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

Here is a mathematical equation, for those who prefer communication to be quantitative.

If: The average pain to fun ratio for most of life is stated as 1:1
Then: The pain to fun ratio for snowboarding = 1000:1

Here's the above statement in a qualitative (superior) way:

Snowboarding hurts real bad.

I hope that next time the ratio gets lower, or (for those who prefer qualitative measurements) that I don't fall on my butt as much as I did today.

Thank you.

Lord, please don't forsake me - in my Mercedes Benz

2007-11-13T18:21:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I fell in love with the city of Hamilton. I got to go to the ministry centre and then to Bayfront park with my friends Jaden and Scott. I've never been a city oriented person before, but driving from there to my school, in Ancaster, really made me understand why cities are beautiful.

Outside the ministry centre, people that would generally be classified as "bums" talked about Bible study: "I'm beginning to do Bible study more often at home, and it's beautiful!" "Yes, the LORD is pushing me to start doing Bible study at home. Well, actually He's not pushing me, He's being very gentle..."

The drive through the city is filled with people, lights, restaurants, and general beauty. I don't normally place much stock in feelings, but in the city I simply feel good.

In school, students who would generally be classified as "normal" complain about class. " It makes me sick. No, seriously, I just want to throw up when I think about it. Seriously, it makes me nauseous." (Another annoying thing about people who have too much stuff is that they say the same thing over and over, in an effort to appear superior. Just read any of my papers.)

Ancaster, at least the part where my school is, is ice cold. Houses are hidden and lights are turned off. There are no people in sight. Highway overpasses are concrete tunnels, cold and hard. Students jut out their chests to let the world know that they have enough money to buy Hollister and Abercrombie. No one talks about God on the mountain. Why talk about the One who fills your needs if you have no needs to be filled?

I'm moving downtown. Soon.

Stuff.

2007-11-06T08:01:00.000-08:00

Stuff. We all have it, and Christmas in our culture is about it. Everyone reading this probably knows that we need to remember the real reason for Christmas - the coming of Jesus Christ to earth. This event is key for everything. In Him we live and move and have our being. Without the incarnation of Christ, all the promises of God have yet to be fulfilled. Even our history is based around the coming of Christ (B.C., A.D., and even B.C.E. and C.E. refer to the approximate date of His arrival.) However, the fact that Christmas is about Jesus Christ coming to earth does not mean that it's not also about family, gifts, Santa Claus, celebrating material blessings in a way that shows we're thankful, and nephews and nieces that are stoked.

Call me a materialist, it's true.

I'm going to propose that the Christmas season as we know it today reflects the incarnation of our Saviour (Much of this is inspired by Sufjan Stevens' writing in the liner notes of "Songs for Christmas Singalong.") You see, the incarnation was a beautiful thing. It was God reaching down to us on earth to touch us, feel our pain, live under the effects of sin, and to free us! This is truly beautiful for us. But it was not beautiful for Christ. He put His Glory away, wrapped Himself in human skin and human sin, and got dirty. He was a carpenter, with rough hands and tough skin. He was a cat, hanging out with everyone who needed it and knowing what was going on. He didn't mess around though, He could kick the ass of a temple full of greedy merchants who probably did not stand idly by when He started chucking their money around. He also cried, bled, and got scared. He struggled to come to terms with God's will for His life, and in every way He shared our nature. God and man were contained fully, completely, beautifully, and with great ugliness in one entity - the body, soul, and Spirit of Jesus Christ, the God-man. The incarnation at Christmas was bittersweet, something Sufjan describes as "That Creepy Christmas Feeling."

Christmas in our society is also bittersweet. The Christmas season is the setting for more suicides than any other time of the year. Our culture's Christmas, with its box store catalogues, screaming children, annoying music, fake Christmas cheer, rampant materialism, and excessive consumption of alcohol can only be described with one adjective - it sucks. The real reason for Christmas does not suck, but the season itself does suck. The real reason for the incarnation does not suck, but the incarnation did suck.

In our failure to "purify" and "redeem" the Christmas season, I see a beautiful symbol, a description of reality. I am all for remembering the real "reason for the season," but I am opposed to the willful ignorance of the symbol God has created in our culture, the symbol of the combination of beauty and ugliness, perfection and imperfect appearance. This symbol helps me to understand, in however foggy a way, the mystery of the incarnation.

What should we do? What are the real implications of this philosophy of Christmas in our lives?
Earn much
Consume little
Hoard nothing
Give generously
Celebrate life.
(Viv Grigg Companion to the Poor Pg. 95)

The key is the term 'Bittersweet.' Like a stiff rum and eggnog with nutmeg. That's Christmas. I think that it's beautiful, just the way it is.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I'm thankful for Christ, who brings us all together and accepts our praise and our shortcomings, our joy and pain, our beauty and ugliness, our warm fuzzies and our frustation as we follow Him.

With all of my love, Ben

Oh! What a Beautiful View!

2007-10-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

Right now I am waking up to Ryan's voice, saying good morning to his family, missing my mom, drinking some grapefruit juice, taking my Vandenhaak vitamins, trying to calm some nerves, sitting on one of the beautiful new couches at Redeemer, looking back at my life, listening to Death Cab, drinking Jones, wondering why it's so hard to pin down feelings, talking to Joy about life, deciding that one of my daughters is going to be named Joy, because joy is an incredible thing. I am preparing for the Day, for class, for the ride home, for band practice, for losing things and finding them, for being a philosophical kid without the degree, and for bed. I'm not worried about school. I am wondering how school can be such a chisel, and how I can be such a block of stone. There are things that I don't care about, and things I do care about. I care about the past and the future. I care about you. I don't care if you don't care about this. In heaven, I'm going to look back at my life like it's a second. I'm going to watch God's videotapes of me running around like an idiot for my whole life. It's going to be incredible, a life in microcosm. I'm going to know the reason for the joy and the frustrations, and it will never feel like I'm beating my head against a wall again.

I wish that we could open our eyes to see in all directions at the same time.

The Great Gatsby

2007-10-06T18:34:00.000-07:00

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Like one of those giant elastics that comes on your broccoli.

2007-10-03T19:50:00.000-07:00

I'm being stretched. I'm now on Student Senate at Redeemer, the Youth Conference Committee of the Can. Ref. Churches, the leadership team at Emmanuel Youth Group, the Spiritual Activities for Students Committee, and the Student Affairs Committee. Plus I have what feels like a hundred other commitments. Ryan tells me I should do less, I tell him I'm doing more. the best part of the grace of God is that it makes me stretch, like a giant elastic. I hope this elastic doesn't break though.

One Great City!

2007-09-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2000 my mother, father and I drove to British Columbia across Canada. One of our stops was a week-long stay in Winnipeg. This was a decent experience at the time, but now that I think back, I can imagine how living in Winnipeg would profoundly impact my life – it would suck. I can vividly remember/imagine the mosquitoes swarming from the swamps around the city, forming a huge hand shape, picking me up, carrying me back to their lair, and sucking me dry. I was in Winnipeg during summer. Summer is, I have heard, the best season in Winnipeg.

Ideas of place, positive and negative, have been floating around in my head since Steve told me about a course he was taking with Dr. Bartholomew: A Christian View of Place. My favourite places in the world are camp, and a soccer field that is often on my way home, where I can sit under the mulberry tree and pray. I shouldn't speak of my least favourite places, for fear of offending someone, but I can post the lyrics of an interesting song by The Weakerthans, a band from Winnipeg. (N.B. the correct spelling of “grey.”)

One Great City!

Late afternoon another day is nearly done
A darker grey is breaking through a lighter one
A thousand sharpened elbows in the underground
That hollow hurried sound of feet on polished floor
And in the dollar store the clerk is closing up
And counting loonies trying not to say
I hate Winnipeg

The driver checks the mirror seven minutes late
Crowded riders' restlessness enunciates
The Guess Who suck, the Jets were lousy anyway
The same mood every day
And in the turning lane
Someone's stalled again
He's talking to himself
And hears the price of gas repeat his phrase
I hate Winnipeg

Up above us all,
Leaning into sky
Our golden business boy
Will watch the north end die
And sing 'I love this town'
Then let his arching wrecking ball proclaim:
"I...hate...Winnipeg"

The Weakerthans express something to me in this song that deserves explanation to the wider world. “One Great City!” sticks out on “Reconstruction Site” because of it's ballad form, which differs from the four chord rock format they side with on the rest of the album. One thought immediately struck me as I listened to the album: This song is encore material. I can picture them rocking out in small clubs in Winnipeg while they gained a reputation, playing all their radio-friendly pop-rock, settling down with an acoustic guitar for the encore, and starting into... “One Great City!” I can picture the working people of Manitoba, having drunk themselves into a state where they can enjoy their surroundings, being a bit confused and perplexed as to what to do. They have spent their whole life in Winnipeg, raised their families there, laughed and cried and bled there, and have done their best to make the most of the situation. But as the band comes into the chorus, the tipsy crowd sings along with gusto: “I hate Winnipeg!” Deep in their heart, they know that Winnipeg is everything to them, and yet, by focussing on the facts of their situation, they are one in their hatred of their surroundings. Because of the effort it takes to live there, they know Winnipeg is home, and yet with the band playing, their emotions high from the rock show, and with their friends and colleagues, they raise the chorus high: “I hate Winnipeg!” The song addresses the only reason for anyone to love Winnipeg: to destroy it. (Please understand that “Winnipeg” is becoming representative of much more than itself in this blurb, in fact, it no longer represents itself at all.) The Golden Boy, the businessman, sings to himself “I love this town” while his wrecking ball proclaims otherwise: “I hate Winnipeg”

This is what life on earth is like. We laugh here, we cry here, we live and die here, and we come to know God here. Everything we learn has come to us here. Although our eyes are fixed on Christ, our eyes are still of earth. Although we long for God's kingdom, and our hearts are on things above, our hearts and our longings are still expressed in terms of earthly things, and they are themselves of earthly stuff. When we are powerfully led to do so, we crucify our flesh, and the things of the sinful world that cling to us. We join the chorus “I hate myself, I take up my cross and I follow You!” Yet, in our hearts we know that we're still of the earthly stuff. We're still waiting to move out of this mosquito-infested town. The only ones who really love the earth are the ones who rape it to make money, and as they proclaim their love for the earth, they actually end up killing it. The great efforts of the earth suck – our only famous band rips off its name from a better one, our hockey team gets bought out and moved to the desert, and everything we do amounts to nothing, because we're foreigners, outsiders, and we're in a place where it's freezing cold for most of the year. This is the great paradox presented by The Weakerthans: We're not where we should be. Sometimes we are where we want to be, because earth is the only thing we know. We can be led to the point where we realize that this place is not enough, that there's got to be something better, and where we sing along in the encore, but we're still stuck.

God, end this. Send your Son back soon, and get us away from the mosquitoes, the failings, the loneliness, the emptiness. We're weary of this place, and we want to come home.

2007-09-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

Every second, every centimetre, it's all His.

Redeemer.

2007-09-03T10:18:00.001-07:00

So, I'm sitting here at Redeemer. I'm waiting to register. Scott and Mieke and Cassy and Ryan are here. We are waiting together, and it's a weird feeling that I am feeling. I don't feel nervous, but my hands are shaking kinda. I am a bit excited, but I'm not really sure what's going to happen next. It's like I know that this is where God wants me to be, but I am a little hesitant to just give this over to Him. I think I'll pray that He'll just take it from me. I'm really tired, and some things are annoying me more than they should. It's weird that the things that I felt so sure about just last week are not as sure anymore, and the things that I was not so sure about are now more certain. it's like God is playing tricks on me to get me to trust Him. A weird method, if you ask me, but thankfully God does not ask me very often, He just does what's best for me. Faith is really tough but fun. Fun is the right word to describe it. It's our turn to go in now. Pray for me.

Oh Yeah, and One More Thing.

2007-08-05T10:31:00.001-07:00

Capitalism angers me with a deep anger. I hate it because it tells me that the most important thing in life is money. I hate it because it tells me to work, and I am inherently lazy. I hate it because it abuses people. I hate it because people talk about love in capitalist terms, like when they say you "invest in people," or you "give love," or love has to be "earned," or that people "deserve" love. Capitalism is so shitty, I don't know how to put it into words. I guess that I can't really back my opinion up with any solid proof, but believe me when I say that it gives me really really bad vibes.

Two Qoutes, and Some Other Biz-Nass.

2007-08-05T10:12:00.000-07:00

"The very scary thing about religion, to me, is that people actually believe God is who they think He is. By that I mean they have Him all figured out, mapped out, and as my pastor, Rick, says, "dissected and put into jars on a shelf.""

"I want your flowers like babies want God's love or maybe as sure as tomorrow will come."

Because everything creative about me has fallen out, like a rock in a box when the bottom of the box suddenly dissappears, I have to bum creative things from Donald Miller and Sam Beam. Woe is me.

Summer is going well. If I haven't seen you for most of it, be assured that I miss you. If I have seen you for most of it, be assured that I'm glad.

I'm a bit more foolish now.

2007-07-05T17:30:00.000-07:00

Today at 10:30 I had my wisdom teeth removed, which was quite an experience. It's amazing how painkilling drugs can cause you to trip out and not feel pain, but once they wear off, the pain does not. I also figured out what it's like to be angry at God, because I was angry at God today, because my face hurt so much. I don't like being angry at God, and it's nice that I'm not angry at Him anymore.
Pain seems to make people mellow out a lot. Take my nephew Noah for example: he was always wanting to wrestle, fight, jump, and kick me or any of my brothers, but after he broke his arm he has definitely mellowed out. It's amazing how the ghost of remembered pain can remind us how fragile we are, how stupid we are, and how we need to shut up and be morose every once in a while.
"Even though sorrow may last for the night, joy comes with the morning!" I hope to become a bit more joyful in short order.

Fireflies.

2007-06-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

Tonight, in between writing essays about the rationality of mysticism and the different ways in which communication is needed in families, I took a break to go outside and drink my water. There, I saw one of the most beautiful things I've ever gotten to. It was like the sky was twice as big as it should have been and there was twice as many stars as there should have been, and half of them were flashing. Fireflies. Clouds of them. Swirling around, it felt like I was in space. As soon as school's over I'm going to write a song about them.

I hope they're out tomorrow night.

A Lesson.

2007-06-08T13:35:00.001-07:00

Just because someone says "fuck" in every sentence, doesn't mean I don't have to love them.

On Blog Culture.

2007-06-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

Blogs are interesting ways to spend time on the internet. I have learned much about my friends and about other people and about myself from blogs. I guess I have been a blogger for a while, so here are some things which I have noticed.
1. It's interesting to see how my friends represent themselves on their blogs. when you meet someone in real life, you get to know them well. On that person's blog sometimes it seems as if they are a different person. This, I think, is a good thing. When you're blogging, you're speaking to any number of different people who may be in any mood or state of mind. for this reason it is good to represent yourself in a little bit of a different way than normal.
2. It's much easier to read blogs than to blog.
3. I get guilty feelings for not checking out some of my friends' blogs as much as I check out others'. I don't know whether this is a sign of me being too "blog-core" or not.
4. Blogs are neat places to share thought. There is one phenomenon I'd like to speak about in more detail, and that is the one of the nasty little link on the bottom right of each post. "Comments". Now, some people have many other people who read their blog a great deal, and with whom they are dear friends. This leads to them getting sweet comments. For other people, comments are more scarce. Perhaps this is simply because of a lack of audience, but it can also be for some of the following reasons: 1. Awkward e-silence: When someone opens up just a little to much on a blog, there is definitely an awkward e-silence. This is similar to the real life awkward silence, except it leaves the author feeling as if the half-hour they spent blogging was useless. 2. Controversial content: the content of one's post is so controversial that people are not interested in spending their blog leisure time in intense intellectual discussion. With more easy to read blogs only a click away, why not hide under a rock? 3. Some people have started a "comment conference call" about the weekend, the t.v. show they're watching, or anything else in the comments box of a friend's blog. These conversations have nothing to do with the blog, and when someone enters a comment concerning the blog and not concerning the conversation, the conversation ends and there is a "how rude!" awkward e-silence. 4. There are probably more.
5. It is important to not open up too much on a blog. Although it is a forum for free discussion, open comments about one's own relationship troubles, etc., when seen by the wrong audience, make everyone involved feel bum.
6. I like my blogs. I should make more effort to update them, and I have a strange desire and jealousy for more readership. Maybe I should get into journalism.
7. I am glad in the fact that this list has seven parts. The original title of this post was to be "On Blog Culture. And a Piece of Information Blatantly Opposed to Aforementioned Culture." This piece of information is not forthcoming, however, because I thought better of it during the writing of this (see rule #5). I guess my intent was to break the very rules I set out, but I am chicken.

For Ryan.

2007-05-26T20:45:00.001-07:00

Ryan is many more things to me than can be included in the following list. However, I feel the need to write some of these things.
-the guy who knows what "humm" means.
-the guy who teaches me most of what I know about God.
-the guy who tells me things that are important to him.
-my brother
-a guy who, aside from the fact that he is more attractive than me, reminds me a lot of me.
-a guy who introduces me to cool people
-an encourager ~ a "Barnabas"
-a Jonathan. With David I say to you: "your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women."
-there's a lot more.

Interesting Things.

2007-05-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

So, here is a collection of interesting things, because I feel guilty about not blogging.

I feel good about the youth group campfire we had at my house. It sucked that I had to sound like a teacher to try to keep things on track. I hate telling people to be quiet. I also learned that rock music can be done on an acoustic guitar, but there is a right way and a wrong way. I learned that when leading worship, rock has its place, but it is a very small and insignificant place. Not unlike one of those poor independent M.P.'s in parliament.

I feel bad about my legs being really sore. Not guilty bad, just sore bad. I feel bad about some friendships that I always take encouragement from but have a hard time giving encouragement in because I am spiritually exhausted. I feel bad because Brittni just told me that Ryan was in a weird mood tonight. I love Ryan. I feel bad for scoring goals at soccer when some people didn't get to touch the ball very much.

I wish I had a digital camera with which to take pictures of my room, and blog them. I would take a picture of how the sun plays in the grains of the mahogany in the side of my guitar. I would take a picture of the stack of papers on my desk, waiting in vain for attention. I would take a picture of my mom's guitar. It's really quiet. And I love it. I would take a picture of my basketball. I would take a picture of the cords on the floor. I would take a picture of my Bible open to James 5, reminding me to wait for the Lord. I would take a picture of a stack of clean clothes. I would video record every second of my day and let you watch it. Sometimes I wish I was a good enough communicator to be able to express to someone exactly what any situation is like for me. I will try right now.

I am a little tired. I want to blog though, because I just read Kieth Brink's blog. And now I want to blog. maybe I was inspired, but somehow I don't think so. I'm probably just jealous that he blogs. I am a little worried. Something about last weekend was wrong. I don't know what. I am worried that the girl I am waiting for might be waiting for someone else, and then she will arrive at my bus stop, and I will have the sign with her name on it, and she will be running around frantically looking for someone with a different name, and a different life. And all I will have is a lame piece of cardboard. And more material to write songs about. I'm sooper-emo. I am excited for work tomorrow because it means I get to pay down debts. Debts suck. I am afraid Mom will come into the room and be mad at me for being on dial-up long enough to write this waste of your time. I feel like I need to focus on grace more. I feel like I need to feel less spiritually mature. I need to pay more attention to school. I need to see some people. I need to not see other people. I need some food tomorrow, or I will be hungry. I'm going to bed, after I check for messages from the girl I'm waiting for. Goodnight. God bless. See you in the morning, or someday soon.
Ben

A joke.

2007-05-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

Two men from Markdale were sitting on the porch swing, playing some bluegrass. one turns to the other and says: "Windy, innit?" The other says: "Nah, Thirsdy." The first says "Ok, I'll go get you a beer."

The Amitie.

2007-05-03T15:14:00.000-07:00

Check out the blog for my solo project at www.theamitie.blogspot.com
It's probably a waste of your time, but hey, what blog isn't?

A Good Poem, Suitable for this Time of Year.

2007-04-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
- Robert Frost

A Math Equation, Designed to Make You Understand the Self.

2007-04-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

I wonder at my sense of self. I take it for granted that I exist. Being is a quality every human possesses. We would do well to act like it. Here is a neat question to make you think:

Statement #1 - I raise my arm.
Statement #2 - My arm goes up.

Subtract Statement #2 from statement #1. What is left over?

The answer is, very profoundly, "I".
Neat eh? I hope this makes you understand the idea of being. It helped me. Philosophy class, if useless in the real world, helps me to take my mind off things for a while. i think that's a little bit backwards.

Hello.

2007-04-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

Dear blog reader. Thank you for wasting your time reading this and leaving comments. It's pretty neat that there's nothing better for you to be doing.
Hypocritically, Ben.

Illness.

2007-04-18T10:04:00.001-07:00

So, everything is a little ill. Just as in every good thing there are some bad marks, the spoon I was using to pig out on dessert at the campfire! banquet had some dangerous bacteria/virus on it. and now I am recovering from sickness. Interesting that I think I am recovering, because one day I might die of the same sickness. Does it still count as recovering? I think so. Also, my computer is a little ill, having caught a cyber-virus. It also is recovering, slowly. Windows is the bane of the western world. Slowly, tentatively, I am coaxing it back to where it needs to be. This is the plan, anyway. Yupp, illness sucks. except, I guess, if you're talking about an extreme sport. Then, to be ill is to be sikk. Or nasty. Or wicked.

And Still it Moves

2007-04-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

It's tough to love
When your breath still smells like booze
From last night,
The night before,
And the night

before(.) I can love,
I want you to brush your teeth
Quit swearing
Find some truth
And be loveable.

Smell my breath
Hear my lies
and know that I
Am unloveable

And still you love me
With my breath like booze
And still it moves
And still love moves...

joy

2007-04-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

I remember praying for joy about a month ago. And someone at school called me a "ball of joy" the other day. PRAISE GOD!

I can't believe I'm going to hand this in to-morrow.

2007-03-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

As a protestant person, I appreciate the theology of Martin Luther very much. Please understand that I am very thankful for the good that the Catholic church has done in this world. God has used it mightily for many good things. But my conscience does not allow me to sugar-coat what I believe about the Roman Catholic Church any longer, and Concerning Christian Liberty by Luther is an excellent summary of what I believe. I will therefore take this opportunity to expose my beliefs to criticism. But enough of that, let us speak about history for a moment. The medieval catholic world was in upheaval after Luther suggested changes that should be made in the church. Because of the church’s close connection with the government, the entire socio-political structure of the 16th century was disturbed by Luther’s theology. The question still is posed: was this disruption necessary and right? Through the writing of this essay I have come to appreciate even more the sacrifices he and other reformers made so that my church today follows the Word of God. Martin Luther’s essay Concerning Christian Liberty is a wonderful call for reformation in the Catholic Christian Church. His insistence upon the power of the Word of God, his philosophy of good works, and his understanding of human nature are a beautiful argument for a return to Scripture-based worship and doctrine.
Martin Luther insisted that the Word of God, the scriptures, are the only way for knowing God. As we read in II Peter 1:19-21:
"And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to
pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy
came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin
in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were moved along by the Holy
Spirit."
Luther understands that we do well let the Word of God dwell in us richly. The imagery Peter uses is that of a light in a dark place, as well as the imagery of God being the morning star. By reading and listening to God’s Word, the Bible, God works faith in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, with patience and by opening one’s heart, God causes the morning star of faith in Him to rise in us. Luther speaks to this effect where he says "One thing, and one alone, is necessary for life, justification, and Christian liberty; and that is the most holy word of God, the Gospel of Christ". This beautiful statement, backed by Scripture, is a call for reform in the Catholic church so that superstitious rituals and traditions that have no basis in Scripture should be removed from Catholic doctrine. The response this call was and still is needed in the Catholic church. Foolish practices, such as the worship of saints and of Mary, the twisted view of the sacraments as practiced in the Catholic church, and the hypocritical lives of many members need to be reformed. I speak here not of the corruption of the priesthood, but of the lives of each individual Catholic, which often show that religion is a small compartment of their life that does not affect the rest of their lives. This also shows the general reluctance of the Catholic church to act on the truth that is revealed to them. In I Corinthians 4:20, Paul tells us that "the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power." and again God speaks to us through the Apostle John: "Dear children, let us not love with words of tongue but with actions and in truth." (I John 3:18). Spiritual apathy is the biggest enemy of the Christian life. When we are shown what God wants of us, we should act! This flies in the face of the judgement that the Council of Trent passed on Luther’s theology, namely that what he said was true, but that the church must be careful in how it teaches this. This shows the general forgetfulness the Catholic church has towards the power of the living Word of God. If II Peter 1: 19-21 applies to the leaders of the church, how much more should it apply to those who are being led! The Word of God, when used properly, creates faith in us, and this faith invariably leads to good works, not spiritual apathy. This leads nicely into the next part of Luther’s demand for change: That of good works.
Luther says "When you begin to believe, you learn at the same time that all that is in you is utterly guilty, sinful, and damnable, according to that saying ‘All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God’ (Rom. 3:23)". At first glance this seems a terribly depressing thought. But Luther continues: "When you have learned this, you will know that Christ is necessary for you, since He has suffered and risen again for you, that, believing on Him, you might by this faith become another man, all your sins being remitted, and you being justified by the merits of another man, namely Christ alone." By this argument, again based in Scripture, we realize that we as humans have nothing to bring to the table. God requires perfection, in body and soul, neither criterion of which we are able to satisfy. As the Psalmist says: "My sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge."(Psalm 51:3,4). Although our first natural response is to say "Hey, I’m not that bad!" what David says is true for all of us. All our actions are stained with sin, even the "good" that we do. By faith, however, we are justified and we are renewed to do good works. We "become another man". Our old sinful self is crucified with Christ on the cross, and our new self is raised with Christ to newness of life. When this conversion of our inner man happens, the natural next step is for our outer man, or our bodies and actions, to change. Just as a good tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree bears bad fruit, a person who is made new by faith does good works, and a person who is not renewed does evil. Just as good fruit does not make a good tree, good works do not make a good person. To suppose this is to get the order of things wrong. In the same breath, however, what good is a good tree if it will not bear fruit? How will it be distinguished from the bad tree that also bears no fruit? It cannot! And similarly, "faith without deeds is dead." (James 2:26). The renewal of our hearts, by the spirit of God, who works through the Word of God, naturally leads us to do good. Again, once we realize that this is how God would have our faith and our life interact, it is not in our power to say no to him! We must live in this knowledge, allowing our good works to overflow from a heart full of love for God, and we must also teach this truth in the church. The spirit of God, working in a life converted to God’s service, will consistently not allow spiritual apathy. The renewal of our nature ensures this. Luther’s view of human nature is also a valuable one, from which we can learn very much.
There are those who believe that Luther’s view of human nature is twisted due to his own religious experience, and that a terrible wrong is done in building a church from the experiences of one man. Our society has seen all too often the effects of cults which are based on the spiritual experience of only a few people. These cults are often narrow minded, dangerous, and suicidal. However, the key difference between Luther’s theology and the theology of any cult is that Luther did not base his beliefs upon his personal religious experience, but instead upon the living Word of God. His dualistic view of human nature sprouts not from his own sad existence, but from the Gospel.
Luther speaks of both inner and outer man. It is important to remember that here he speaks of the inner man being renewed by the Spirit of God. He says: "For the inner man, being conformed to God and created after the image of God through faith, rejoices and delights itself in Christ, in whom such blessings have been conferred on it, and hence has only this task before it: to serve God with joy and for nought in free love. But in doing this he comes into collision with that contrary will in his own flesh, which is striving to serve the world and to seek its own gratification." Luther again takes this dualism from scripture (see Romans 7:22, 23). Our new inner nature, which is completely renewed at the moment of our conversion, is at war with the remaining part of our old nature, our flesh. This dualism is different from other dualism in that the border between physical and spiritual is not the border between our two natures. Instead, our old nature still affects our intellect, our reason, and our consciousness. However, our soul, the spirit that lives in us, is what is converted. From the moment of conversion more and more of the flesh is converted by the work of the Holy Spirit, until Christ returns and our souls will be united with our flesh in perfection, so that we may serve God perfectly. "As long as we live in the flesh, we are but beginning and making advances in that which shall be completed in a future life." This is the synthesis between our natures, the perfection that comes only with unity with God.
We can see, therefore, that unity with God is the ultimate purpose and direction of the human race. All of our actions in this life should be actions of worship. In order to worship God, we must know Him. This is the importance of studying the Bible. We must allow it to speak to us by constantly reading it, searching it, and finding meaning for life in it. When we find instruction from God in it, let us not hesitate to change! "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him." (Colossians 3:17). Do all in the service of God!
We can also conclude that Luther’s call for reformation should have been heard and acted upon. Many of the struggles of the Catholic Church today stem from the fact that the Word of God is made subject to tradition and the teaching of the church. I implore you, do not forget the power of God’s grace, love and Word. If given the opportunity to tell any person one thing, I would tell them to search the Bible. By it alone are we shown our salvation. The Roman Catholic Church is therefore at fault for not taking instruction from the Word, and many of the reasons for the destruction of the medieval Catholic world can be traced back to the Catholic church’s slipping away from the Word. Luther was only a man though. The call that the church should have heeded was not his, it was the call of our Lord! His words still remain: "‘Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and will bring you back from captivity.’"

Thunderstorms and rock music

2007-03-26T14:01:00.000-07:00

God digs rock music. If you don't believe me, watch a thunderstorm, preferably while reading Psalm 29.

God digs a lot of cool things, like friendships and stuff.

God digs.

Waiting.

2007-03-09T11:45:00.001-08:00

Here I am. I'm waiting for 3:30, so I can start my trip to Kentucky. I'm listening to Coldplay to pass the time. Chris Martin is singing "how long must you wait for it?". He has a wonderful voice. I recorded a song last week and my voice is redonkulously un-wonderful. I wonder if it will ever sound good. Right now there is an advertisment that says "Congratulations" on it that is moving around at the bottom of my screen. It's time to get a few sticky notes and cover it up, because it's really annoying me. There. I don't need to see my toolbar anyway. So I've tried everything to pass the time. NCAA basketball is not on yet, so that won't work. I went to my room and played my guitar loudly. And the i played my other guitar softly. I just moved the one sticky note to see what time it is. It is 2:40. that means i have to wait for 50 more minutes. And I am out of things to do, so here I am, wasting time on a note that no one would read. "Your guess is as good as mine." That's what Chris martin is singing now. "A Rush of Blood to the Head" is one of my favourite albums. I'm thinking about cutting and pasting this note to my blog, because no one reads facebook notes anyway. This song reminds me of Keith, Luke, and Jonathan. "You don't know how lovely you are."It reminds me of my second favouritest youth group in the world, the one @ Zion URC. It's a pretty awesome way to spend every other saturday night. So yeah, I'm about to go have a nap. Goodbye!

C.S. Lewis on Friends.

2007-03-05T13:21:00.000-08:00

"... the higher the common ground of the Friendship is, the more necessary the remembrance [of our shortcomings]. In an explicitly religious Friendship, above all, to forget [these] would be fatal.
For then it will seem to us that we - we four or five - have chosen one another, the insight of each finding the intrinsic beauty of the rest, like to like, a voluntary nobility; that we have ascended above the rest of mankind by our native powers. The other loves do not invite the same illusion. Affection obviously requires kinship or at least proximities which never depended on our own choice. And as for Eros, half the love songs and half the love poems in the world will tell you that the Beloved is your fate or destiny, no more your choice than a thunderbolt, for 'it is not in our power to love or hate'. Cupid's archery, genes - anything but ourselves. But in Friendship, being free of all that, we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting - any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples 'Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,' can truly say to every group of Christian friends 'You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.' The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others. They are no greater than the beauties of a thousand other men; by Friendship God opens our eyes to them. They are, like all beauties, derived from Him, and then, in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Frienship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing, At this feast it is He who has spread the board and it is he who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare hope, who sometimes does, and always should , prseide. Let us not reckon without our Host.
Not that we must always partake of it solemnly. 'God who made good laughter' forbid. It is one of the difficult and delightful subtleties of life that we must deeply acknowledge certain things to be serous and yet retain the power and will to treat them often as lightly as a game.... For the moment I will only quote Dunbar's beautifully balanced advice:

"Man, please thy Maker, and be merry,
And give not for this world a cherry." "

faith

2007-03-01T19:46:00.001-08:00

Today I was shovelling snow, which usually cause me to think. so I thought about a heated conversation I had with a girl at school about homosexuality. We were talking about how my faith is different from the catholic faith, and she asked me what I thought about homosexuality. Here's an approximation of the rest of the conversation.
"I believe that homosexuality is a sin, and if gay people refuse to realize that their lifestyle is not pleasing to God and turn to Christ for forgiveness, they can't go to heaven."
"You can't be f---ing serious. You're a f---ing joke. didn't Jesus tell us to love each other?"
"Yes, but God created us a certain way. to rebel against that is to sin."
"It's not a sin, because they're f---ing born that way. You know what? f--- it."
"They weren't born that way. Here, read Leviticus 18:22."
reads "Yeah, but my friends who are gay say that they can't choose, and doctors say so too."
"Well, this is what I believe."
"You'd rather believe that it's a sin? (sarcastically)That must take a lot of faith."
"Yeah."

But today, while shovelling snow, I realized that it takes just as much faith for me to belive that homosexuality is a sin as for Amanda to believe that gay people are born gay. She, being a woman and a heterosexual, must take it on faith from what she's heard from her gay friends that their lifestyle is genetic. I, being a Christian, take my belief on faith from what the God who made everything says. I dunno about you, but I'd rather believe God.

P.S. Expletives make discussions about God ...interesting. You'd think that someone who wants to convince another person to their point of view would choose not to insult them. It's a good thing God gave me the ability to take verbal abuse.

Sam

2007-02-17T20:28:00.000-08:00

My dearest Sam has taken his last blow. A friend through many trials, he always sounded good and was a willing tool in my ambitions to express myself. I wrote him a lament, and will probably use him to play it. He sounds bad, his action is just plain ugly, and I can't afford to fix him.

When we're in heaven him and I are going to play. And he's going to sound great, and my voice will never crack, and all his scratches and cracks will be fixed and my fingers will never get sore and his strings will never break and we're going to praise our King and dance on the streets that are golden together.

Guitars are my my favourite. They are reliable, predictable, and primitive enough for me. I would explain what I mean by that, but bed is calling, and so is finishing the writing of Sam's lament. Good night. Enjoy your music. Bond with your instrument while it sounds good, because the day may come when it doesn't.

the fifth commandment

2007-02-14T10:09:00.000-08:00

Saying the fifth commandment over and over in my head saved me from doing something really stupid this morning. I'm going to memorize more Scripture.

2007-02-05T18:20:00.000-08:00

My idea is to host a youth group/young people's leader's conference at Campfire! !
I want to see if we can get a bunch of leaders from all different churches to come up for a weekend, and devote themselves to leading the youth of their church to God, and to learn how to practically do so! What do you guys think? I want to host it sometime at the beginning of next study season. Hopefully churches can sponsor their youth group leaders to come, and it will be a wonderful experience! That's the plan i have right now anyway, I'm still trying to come up with details.

an idea

2007-02-04T15:02:00.000-08:00

I had a blockbuster idea in chruch this afternoon, and I like the way it's making me feel. Ideas are great.

fact and fiction

2007-02-01T20:26:00.000-08:00

The truth is that I have never been better.
The truth is that I have never felt worse.
The truth is that feelings are lies.

a poem, real this time.

2007-01-23T06:21:00.000-08:00

I am about to start typing a poem, from scratch. It is about travel. Here goes:

Sunrise on the big boat.
4:30 a.m. up time. I'm supposed to go back to sleep as we fly on the tarmac north to
Tobermory.
It's 6:00 all of a sudden.
The anticipation keeps me awake.
I know there's going to be a light soon.
On the boat, that's when it comes.
Across the endless Lake the pink and yellow shocks the world
Like a 90's jogging suit.
Good morning God, Mom, and Dad. We are on our way.
To beauty, to endless fields, to mountains so high the sun never rises or sets on them.
Except for the one with the Indian in it.
And in the shade of that mountain
God moves. I move. The world moves. My family moves.
Does anyone ever stay still?

with help from Justine and Sina

2007-01-15T16:27:00.000-08:00

"Ode to dessert"
Dessert is spelled with 2 "S" 's
And it can make many messes.
Desert has one less "S"
But sand can still be a mess.
It fills up all the cracks
Fills my stomach to the max.
Trifle and crisp and chocolatey stuff
I don't thik i can get enough.
Whipped cream is so delectable,
But not very digestible.
It might give you a quadruple bypass
(One time I saw a timid fish ... it was a shy bass)
It is pretty high in cholesterol,
But I don't care, it is the best of all.

imagine...

2007-01-14T20:30:00.001-08:00

Imagine I walked up to you and punched you in the face, and then said "just kidding!". Would it still hurt? Would our friendship be the same as it was before? At camp there is a "no-d" zone. I'm trying to make my life a "no-d" zone, just to see what will happen. It will be hard, I've already failed miserably a few times. So pray for me please. And don't be afraid to tell me if I'm making you feel like I don't love you as much as I do.

writing

2007-01-11T20:03:00.000-08:00

today i sat down after spending a marginal amount of time on my physix homework and wrote a letter to no one in particular. i sealed it, and will open it in three years. it has a zillion different themes in it. most of them have to do with clothes though. i'm kind of a clothesgeek. i get a large kick out of when people have a correctly tied tie for example, with a nicely shaped triangle at the top and an appropriate length. it kills me, as holden would say. so anyway, it's interesting how i could sit down and write 6 pages of handwriting about my clothes, and how they are tied into the events of my life. i have too many clothes, but i need new shoes.

i have too many clothes, but i need new shoes.

see you later.

2007-01-08T19:16:00.000-08:00

I have a blogspot blog!
This is wierd, I just clicked on the or something like that button, and here I am!
Things I've noticed:
I have the same colour scheme as Ryan. I should work on that, but I probably won't.
I'm sick of xanga advertisements.
I think that i should start writing on here.
I kind of like death cab. Not a whole lot, but a little.
I do not have the ability to play drums.
I keep writing about myself.
I talk too much.
In other news...
My Ipod works again! Magical.