Here are the books I am reading and enjoying right now:
The Robe, by Lloyd C. Douglas
Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar - Readings on Courting and Marrying (The Ethics of Everyday Life) by Amy Kass and Leon Kass
The Meaning of the City, By Jacques Ellul (yeah it's pink)
The Republic of Plato
The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
The Tempest by Shakespeare - my least favorite of his plays so far, struggling to finish this one
Bone by Jeff Smith (it's a comic book). (A 1000 page comic book.)
Luke's Gospel
Ephesians
1 Peter
Oh and because this is such a random post, I'll put up a random optical illusion, "Foom" here it is:
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Bookses
One of those days...
If you go to spaceweatherphone.com, you can sign up for a service that will alert you, at all times of day or night, of any interesting space phenomena (alignment of planets, aurora borealis, meteor showers, the sun exploding, etc...)
And feel free to replace "I hate phones" with "I hate Mondays", "I hate cats", "I hate boys", "I hate my English teachers", go ahead and be creative...
When All Else Fails:
... Pray.
(I'm not known for waxing eloquent very often. My ears do far more waxing than my lips.) Thanks to Dr. Jim King for saying this again. (The first part, not the ear part.)... [Okay fine, also jump up and shout "Super-khali-fragilistic-expiali-docious." It sounds atrocious, but you'll sound precocious.]
Pray. Hmm. "Come on Josh, you got yourself all that ed-jee-cayshun, greek and hebrew and 'ism's and ologies' and that's the best you can come up with?" Rather mind-blowing what a bible degree does for you =). The strange thing is, for some reason it's almost taken all this education to get me to this point. Once the academic veil has been lifted a little bit, and the ivory-tower theologians lose their shiny whiteness, some change takes place. I stop being so impressed by the greatest speakers or smartest talking-heads, stop trying to imitate them; and then I turn off all the church chatter.
I used to think education was about building on top of what I had. I came in as a freshmen, with layers of poorly constructed ideas jumbled together into what I thought was a decent building. And I believe that the teachers job is to build on top of that, until I become some sort of Super Josh (whatever I thought that was). What has actually happened is all this silly clutter of bad ideas has been smashed away, sliced off, washed down. The three sledgehammer's of God's mercy have been Dr. Steve Shumaker, Dr. Jim King, and Eric Pareis (Socrates reincarnated, plus the best cook and host in the world). Smash, cut, slice, spray, get rid of years of accumulated church chatter and pompous pontifications; you watch it go and discover you don't miss it that much. And if the teachers have done their jobs right, you don't end up an intolerable windbag spouting foul air out of both ends (although it happens).
And amazingly, I'm going to be leaving this place short on dogmas and isms and ologies. I've met a few too many fellow students who can really pound out some beefy theological burger-patties (it's midnight, let the juvenile in front of the keyboard have his fun), but these guys don't have the guts to pray with you. (What are they afraid of?) And I've spent a lot of years being in a family that knows a lot, sharper than the average churchey family, but hardly ever prays together. I'm 22 now, and I'm only just now learning to pray. (And by prayer, I really just mean talking with God; "abiding".) It's been a long path for me to come to the simple basics and truths and turn off all the static.
I'm hitting that moment when, instead of finding closure to my thoughts, I see five thoughts which are important and just must be said; I'm like a kid in a candy store, "look at this next shiny thought, I've got to pursue it..." I'm going to let it go, my empty cue-tip box is in
dicating that I've done enough waxing for one night.
From last weekend: Good Morning Albany #1
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Endless editing annoyance...
You can really tell I was raised baptist, I'm an alliteration freak...
I spent quite awhile trying to get a blog entry with photos right, but the photo editing of this thing is awful. If I knew html thing might be different, but I'm html illiterate. So a post is coming but I'm attempting to find some blog editing software that will simplify this process a little. (And even then it probably won't work, but I'm not going to give up! ARRGHH!)
Symphony
Recently (three or four weeks ago) I was in New York City helping set up a piano show. (Not my regular job.) It happened to be in the Lincoln Center, and specifically in the Alice Tully Concert Hall. It just so happened that, as Eric Pareis and I were wandering about before the pianos had arrived, we heard some music. Down some stairs, through a door on the right, and then...
Heard the end of whatever orchestra did this, and a few minutes later the Park Avenue Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra rolls on with an 8' Concert Grand and plays Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto in its entirety.
Lucky isn't quite the word I'm looking for... Lets just say it's not every day you get to see this sort of thing (and for free and in the center of the concert hall??). Beethoven reaches right into my soul, and this piece really grabbed me. (The pianist was absolutely brilliant by the way.) And this just for Elizabeth: you're not allowed to be jealous, because you are going to see the Lion King >=P.
In other news, I finished the Gospel of Luke (I need about four or five more good solid reads before I even start to think about that book), and tonight I watched Cool Hand Luke.
Red Letters: Streetwise Spirituality
I never have anything worth saying. But Jesus does. In Luke 16 He tells a story about a manager who was crooked - he was stealing money; his boss found out and said, "You're fired." He realizes he's going to be stuck and needs to make some friends, so he quickly has all the people who owe his boss money pay back half their debts and gives them a clean slate...
"(v.8) Now here's a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way - but for what is right -- using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you'll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior."
~The Message
I really can't add a lot off the top of my head, cuz this passage blows me away.
great scot! i preach tomorrow!
Yes, my doom is sure. (Making comics is WAY more fun...) By the way, I've had a heck of an awful time getting the graphic output on this comic program to come out decent. That's going to drive me completely insane some time between now and the second coming of Jesus.
On a positive note, there's a fantastic storm outside. It's kind of like God saying, "Yup, you're pretty much screwed." I'm just kidding I think I'll be all right.
To a Catholic service, today I went. I learned a few valuable lessons, and got absolved, all in one lucky day! (Okay I didn't get absolved, maybe next time.) The sermon was on the 2nd coming of Jesus, and what do you know it was right out of the red letters! All right I'm done goofing off, I'm going to be ready for this if it's the last thing I do. (Ready, not including being fresh and rested when it comes time to preach.) I hope Eric and Danielle both make it, I'm really looking forward to having some advice from people who aren't classmates.
Busy busy bee
Wow. Busy. I don't like being busy, but hey here I am. There's a lot of things I'd like to write about or post photos from - trips, Mama B's new baby (Katherine Anne B--), or just some random illustrations or photos or comic strips or ANYTHING .. but one thing keeps me back. I really don't think that anything I write should be just thrown on. I think it needs to be composed. Emails, letters, whatever, they are all creations and I just can't SPEW my random nonsense into whatever I'm writing. (No, I can, but it's better that I not, hehheh.). And I just don't have time =(. Or energy right now. I'm so bloody tired bleehhhh... college, geeeeez..
So here I am, writing whatever nonsense pops into my head. Now see that's brilliant. The over-analyzer will see that this is actually a carefully composed demonstration of irony with many hidden meanings...
Oh, I saw Neil Simon's "The Good Doctor" right here at BBC. I want to scan the ticket; I don't know why, I simply do. Good night.
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