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 indicating that I've done enough waxing for one night.

From last weekend: Good Morning Albany #1

















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