Still working on the decor, but my stuff has been set free from its (im)mobile prison, and I finally feel like I live here.

Look what's playing on my new HDTV. That's right...the Steeler game. And yes, that is an antenna that you see. I'm able to get a clear picture without cable. Nothing like watching the Browns get crapped on in high-definition.



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Why did I title this entry HARVEY JOHNSON, bane of the Geneva College drama department? Because his name unexpectedly came up yesterday while I visited an online friend who lives in Indiana in a house full of female coworkers. As it turns out, after Harvey left Geneva (and many scarred souls in his wake), he got a job with my friend's organization, and has been terrorizing them as fully as he terrorized the Genevans.

Keep in mind, I never met Harvey, but only heard the legends, dramatically recited by the many friends and acquaintances who had to deal with the man. Now that an entirely different group is voicing the same complaints, I think it is safe to say there is some truth to them.

While visiting, I also met a woman who lives in the town I was raised in, back in the Pittsburgh suburbs. Small world, I guess.

Out of curiosity, I've created a new community called Questions For God. Anyone and everyone is invited to join and post their deepest, most personal questions to the Creator, in whatever creative format they choose. Whether you're angry, afraid, doubtful, thankful, or confused, this is the place to voice your thoughts.

Drink the winds--God's bright-winged heralds,
Gathering sinners in the currents,
In the crushing cloudy gusts
That bind men countless as the raindrops.
From their failing lungs of flesh,
The wakened dead exhale rebirth.
Every breeze a revelation.
Every breath a parched prayer,
Unsearchable,
Unceasing.

Pray--
head bowed, hands folded, knees bent,
Incense tingling the nostrils,
Incantations clothing, clinging
To the soul’s bare curves;
Sweat embalming the flesh for death,
Wine anointing resurrection.
Tears wash over the unclean lips
That kiss the wounds, the nails, the blood.

Pray--
stretched prostrate at the altar,
Watched by starry stained-glass eyes,
Blues and purples, reds and greens,
Pale saints pierced by heaven’s lamps,
Echoes filling the yawning arches
Of a cosmic cathedral
Ever reaching for eternity,
But planted in the earth
Where the word becomes flesh
And grows warts.

The stained-glass shatters.
Halos tumble.
Jagged facets shake forth glittering;
Driving a million splintered shards
Of hopes and sins and unheard pleas
Through arms wide open, fingers splayed,
Back broken under the weight
Of a foaming, crashing baptism.

Pray -
caught in morning traffic,
Nostrils burning with exhaust fumes,
Car horns the murmurs of the Hebrews,
Gas tank the slavery of Joseph;
The tongue a flame,
A fiery cauldron
Mixing fear and perseverance;
Teeth set on edge,
Mangling language,
Shearing enamel from the bone,
Scraping a thousand bitter blackboards
Raw and coarse,
Bruised and bleeding;
Hands strangling the wheel.

Pray -
clenching a feather pillow,
Facing the empty half of the bed,
The vermilion haze of the alarm clock
On the nightstand blinking 12,
The tosses and turns a private liturgy,
A solemn benediction,
A rite of passage into dreams
Until the cruel sun rises
By the Lord’s unchanging decree,
So I can walk with him
Again.

Classes don't start until next week, but I've already completed my first essay assignment (and posted it here for your enjoyment). The Hermeneutics prof asked us to write a short, non-researched paper about how we personally study and interpret the Bible. We're supposed to write a second one later on, to contrast with our pre-course ignorance, but I suspect I will struggle to distinguish the second essay from the first, since this is the second Hermeneutics course I've taken.

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Somehow, the seminary staff found my blog and read some content that was not, shall we say, kosher.

To make a short story shorter, my candidacy as a student is at risk. But that doesn't worry me so much as the embarrassment that I brought upon myself by not considering the impact of the garbage I regularly scrawl on this site. As I've been going through my journal, entry by entry, privatizing everything, I've realized how utterly inappropriate a lot of my writing has been, and I am literally sick to my stomach with disgust. I don't know why it is as bad as it is. I guess my blog has become nothing more than a way to blow off steam at the end of the day, and I rarely feel like taking the time to write something substantial and meaningful.

It occurs to me that those of you who don't know me in real life may have an inaccurate idea of who and what I am, and I have only myself to blame for this.

From now on, things will be different. I will only write words worth writing.

This is my last public post.

EDIT: Upon further investigation, I've discovered that my journal went downhill at a specific time period last year and simply never recovered. Before that, things were comparatively tame. Makes perfect sense, but I won't bore you with details. Anyway, I apologize for inflicting my personal psycho-therapy upon you all.

Believe it or not, that is CNN's subtitle for its Web site. Yes, a major news network has decided to give itself a tabloid-esque subtitle. I don't know what to say except...weird.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!

The street name of the week: Electric Avenue.

And then we'll take it higher.

rate me. http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/99450

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/octoberweb-only/140-22.0.html

These are questions I've always wondered about, but never received satisfying answers. Let's see if this guy has solid facts to back up his claims.

I wrote this song for the angels to sing when they carry me to paradise.

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/98605

Couldn't pass this one up.

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/97460

More to come.

You won't find an exhaustive analysis of this overused political slogan anywhere else. Just remember that.

So then, does it make sense or doesn't it? Well, it depends on what you mean by "I support the troops but not the war." And as it turns it, it can mean a lot of things.

1. The pacifist: You support no war under any circumstances, but you support the troops in the sense that you hope they won't die, even though you find their profession morally reprehensible. Trouble is, you also hope the enemy troops won't die. In fact, you really don't want anyone in any walk of life to be killed; but you'll never hear a pacifist Steeler fan say that he supports the Browns in the sense that he hopes they won't die. In short, the pacifist does not support the troops.

2. Or maybe you just don't support this particular war, because it is an unjust war waged by an evil administration against flawed but lovable ragheads. Like the pacifist, you hope the troops will survive. And like the pacifist, you hope the enemy troops will survive. But unlike the pacifist, you believe the enemy is justified in its violence against. So while you may pray that our boys come home safely, your political commitments require you to root for the enemy. You do not support the troops...at least not ours.

3. Or maybe you would say that the war is unjust, but our soldiers have a moral obligation to obey their commander in chief, no matter what (i.e., you are a modern day proponent of the Rex Lex school of thought). So in a sense, it is correct to say that you support the troops. Trouble is, you also support the Iraqi Republican Guard in their obedience to the Baath Party; in fact, you support them more, because you want them to win. For all practical purposes, the only way you are supporting our troops is by paying taxes and by reassuring your sons that they will not be punished by God for committing heinous atrocities.

4. On the other hand, maybe you believe the war is just, but that it is not the wisest course of action our country could have chosen. Perhaps an embargo or a dozen more U.N. resolutions would have been more effective, or maybe we are diverting resources from more important work. Whatever the case, you certainly support the troops in their efforts to destroy Saddam and rebuild Iraq. But while you've been truthful in this regard, it may not be entirely accurate to say that you support the war. You might be compared to a dissenting lieutenant who supports his brave general but disagrees with the general's "shock and awe" strategy which he nevertheless obediently carries out.

5. On the other hand, maybe the justness or unjustness of the conflict isn't as important to you as the risk to our boys. As far as you're concerned, international politics be damned; the Iraqi people aren't worth our blood and toil. From this perspective, you may see our troops not so much as soldiers in a moral conflict as an economic class of government employees who are being taken advantage of and given little in return. When you say you support the troops, what you mean is that they need to unionize. Peace in Baghdad can wait; the troops need thicker armor, bigger health care packages, and competitive wages. For you, "I support the troops but not the war" means "I support the workers but not the 25-hour shifts." You have discreetly shifted the discussion to a related but fundamentally different issue. You have turned our military into a victim class, whose real or imagined class struggle you are supporting.

6. But on the other hand....Wait a minute, there IS no other hand. You lost it to a roadside bomb.

The news about Mother Teresa's secret doubts as recorded in her private journal has made me think about my own confessions. I tend to treat LJ as a private journal, even though it isn't, and I say things here that I wouldn't normally admit in public. Makes me wonder whether I will regret it when I'm famous.

Behold, Starcraft II: