6/30/10

Wrestling with a lot of stuff spiritually this morning. I don't feel like a good leader. I don't feel like I'd want my daughter to marry someone like me.
I've always struggled with a pretty negative self-image. God has helped me a lot, but there was never a lightswitch-change.

Once upon a time, marriage meant children. If you got married, you pretty much had two options: don't have sex, or be fruitful and multiply. Both variations have been explored over the history of the human being. Reliable contraceptives have only been widely available for a short slice of history, but they are completely taken for granted now. "Marriage" no longer inherently carries the assumption of children; couples can choose for themselves. Pastor Mark preached in Song of Solomon that a married couple should be intimately together about once a day. While it's easy for me to look at that figure and nod contemplatively, when that book of the bible was written I don't think that average would be possible. She'd be in some stage of pregnancy pretty much all of the time.
"for a healthy, fertile couple, the 'per month' success rate is around 15-20%, so it is not at all uncommon for it to take some months to conceive. Overall, around 70% of couples will have conceived by 6 months, 85% by 12 months and 95% will be pregnant after 2 years of trying."
I don't have a thesis or a moral to my musings. It's just some raw truth rolling around in my head. The pattern of human life on the earth has swung wildly in the last hundred and fifty years. 3% of recorded time, as chronicled in scripture.

- J

6/29/10

I've been having tremendous difficulty concentrating this week, just feeling tired all the time. I catch myself looking at the clock mere hours into my day. Easily distracted, antsy...
Micah was talking about how he would rather be stabbed in the eye than watch Twilight. I feel somewhat differently. Sure, it's a girl-focused fantasy, and it isn't breaking new ground with plotline or dialogue. And the hysteria (in a uniquely applicable use of the word) surrounding the franchise is tiresome. But I would rather watch a Twilight movie than any romantic comedy made in the last twenty years. It's all a question of input processing. To some, everything Twilight offers gets a reaction like petting a cat the wrong way. I don't have that reaction though, because the underlying story is one I've heard before and it doesn't bother me. Hollywood rom/coms do not share this virtue. They are based on either old stories I don't like, or - more commonly - new stories that I dislike even more. If the film is constructed on a foundation that I can't get behind, it's nearly impossible for me draw any pleasure from watching it.

- J

6/28/10

A good day. I'm building shelves. I always like working with my hands, but I never really learned how to do anything fancy. I lost my dad and graddad before I had the smarts to pick up their carpentry knowledge. Assembling shelves and Ikea furniture is perfect because it gives me the satisfaction of manual construction, but I don't actually have to know anything.
Feeling tired, but good. Can't think of much to write about.
Taylor has asked that our Monday mornings start including more extended times of prayer. Today we prayed for a quarter hour and it felt really good; better than I would expect if I had just considered it in an abstract way. I like the feeling of being able to pray for a lot of things - like if I don't pray for very long, there's a lot of stuff that'll pop into my head during the day that will make me go "aw man, I needed to pray for that too." It's hard to pray for a long time all by myself though, so having company over covers me in a helpful way. If it's just me, it's hard to justify the time; if we're all praying then hey - that's what we're doing right now.
I want to pray with you and over you more.

- J

6/25/10

"Even as I begged you to remain at Ephesus, when I was going to Macedonia, that you might charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor to give heed to fables and endless genealogies (which provide doubts rather than the nurture of God in faith)." [1Tim 1:3-4]

Time flies. I can't believe that June is almost over. I also am incredulous that it took Seattle so long to check it's email re: Summer. The warehouse is pretty hot, and the fans don't do a lot except move the mugginess from one corner to another. We cracked the bay doors yesterday, which was just refreshing enough to make us all realize how stuffy its been. Still, no complaints. I like my job, and I enjoy all the people there. I appreciate how, on a day like today where I have some things to do in the morning, there's nothing wrong with rolling in to the office at ten A.M. There's a lot of intangibles in play.
Paul cuts right to the point in his letter to Timothy. I like that about him too. Hi Timothy. God is still phenomenal, so please remember that. Anyway, to business: I told you the truth, and I told you all of it. I did the same at Ephesus; please remind them gently. Then, if you need to, do it with less gent. Variant doctrines, trying to incorporate other belief systems, and nitpicking all lead to shakiness of faith. The goal of our brotherhood in Christ is growth in faith, which is kinda the opposite of that.
You go, Paul. Tell 'em.

- J

Ninety-nine days 'til I'm married to you, ninety-nine days 'til we're wed,
Wait one day, we're still okay, ninety-eight days 'til I'm married to you...

Get up and go

It's nice to know that no matter how tired I feel, however drained or lethargic, I can always summon more energy if it is for the purpose of hating M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water". It's not the absolute worst movie I've ever seen, but it is without doubt the most punishingly dumb. That level of stupidity bypasses depressing and wraps back around all the way into motivating.

- J

6/23/10

"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Saviour, and Christ Jesus our hope; unto Timothy, my true child in faith: Grace, mercy, peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. " [1Tim 1:1-2]

Timothy is a great epistle because it shows a relationship in progress. An older man, who is not perfect but is farther along the process of sanctification, instructing a younger man who is rising up in leadership and faith. All the letters of Paul are full of good instruction, but I feel like Timothy is the easiest to project myself into. Some of the ideas challenge me; many of them convict me.
Paul is confident about his identity. He knows exactly who he is. A lot of guys will talk about trying to "find themselves" or "figure themselves out"... Straight off, it is clear that this language is not the position of a mature man, but an admission of immaturity. Paul is an apostle, of Christ, as commanded by God and Jesus. Very direct, very certain. No vagueness or deflection.
Paul's first and chief wishes for the younger man he loves are grace, mercy, and peace. All three blessings are not only provided by, but promised by God. As such, it's not just an idle pleasantry, but a reminder of the covenant of the believer. This is a good way to start a letter.

- J

Snippits from radio ads

"One of the most important decisions a man can make is selecting the right divorce attorney."

"It's all about you."

Still reading First Timothy. The instructions for women are very controversial, but the councel given to men is just as foreign. The difference is that women are told to modify their behavior in a way that is externally obvious. It's clear whether a lady is dressing in a demure way or not. I think people fight harder over these things, because it's easier to call them on it; if you agree that you should be honorable and just and reasonable, you can always argue that it's true while in your heart not changing. If you agree that you should not teach a man, and should receive instruction with submissiveness, it's a lot harder to put on the same facade.
Things that are hidden to everyone but yourself and God are the easiest to not mature in. In this way, although Paul's advice to women makes a lot of people very angry, his teaching to men is probably more prone to general disregard and such dismissiveness probably leads to more sin.

- J

Good morning, Monday.

I like Mondays. They always feel like a fresh start. Today is a good day.
I like being engaged to you. It's so great I'm jealous of myself.
I like writing my thoughts down. I like being able to come back later and read them; it's important to sort of toss bread crumbs behind myself. Not so I can retrace my steps, but if I get lost I can sort of start again and follow them to where I left off. I'm so terribly short of mind... if I don't etch these markings into the cave wall, by tomorrow I won't remember what I discovered.

- J

6/18/10

I have not been blogging. I feel kinda lousy about this too.
I have searched every serchable place, multiple times, and I cannot find the hematite ring. It must have slipped off my finger this morning. I put it on after my shower, and when I finished helping the guys move a stack of two-by-fours at nine o'clock it was gone. I'm pretty sure I didn't have it when I stopped by Sugee's but my memory is terrible with this kind of thing. I'm glad it was just a $4 ring, but I feel really bad about it. I loved that ring, and I took it from you, who also loved that ring. I loved it because it was something of yours that I had with me all the time. I had the idea to put it on a necklace, because I knew it was loose on my finger, but I didn't follow through. I am very frustrated with myself.

- J

6/14/10

- J

N+1

Salt-N-Pepa > Guns 'n Roses > Kid'n'Play > Hot N Cold > N'Sync

- J

Fight plaque

Woke a little after five. My brain decided this was an excellent idea and committed to it. The rest of me is generally questioning my brain's wisdom and leadership. Anyway, bacon is on the griddle which should help.
I heard an interview on the radio about the following study: Early life linguistic ability, late life cognitive function, and neuropathology: findings from the Nun Study. Their conclusions were that if you are able to knit together a number of separate ideas into one narrative within your sentences, you are substantially less likely to suffer dementia and Alzheimer's disease when you're old. Whether this is an evidential property or a causative one I don't know. As someone who is profoundly terrified of losing his cognitive function as he ages, however, it seemed worth consideration.
As I write I hear my sentence unfolding within my mind, as if it were being dictated to me by myself. Generally I don't know the ending of each individual line until it is reached on the page. I'm not sure what the experience of others is, but neither am I convinced that it matters too much. The important take-away is that I want to decrease my use of generalisms like "thing". Such undefined vagueries are the mark of a lazy mind, and I want all of myself to be working hard

From Radiolab:
"Researchers would visit once a year to administer memory tests, and it was during one of these visits that Snowdon made a fortuitous discovery: He was told of a collection of biographies that the sisters were required to write upon entering the order, in many cases more than 50 years before the study started. "It was a major, major find," says Serguei Pakhomov, a current researcher with the study.
Snowdon and his team evaluated the essays based on grammatical complexity and idea density – the average number of discrete ideas contained in every 10 written words.

Here's an example of a sentence packed with ideas, from the one of the sister's diaries:

"It was about a half hour before midnight between February 28 and 29 of the leap year 1912 when I began to live, and to die, as the third child of my mother, whose maiden name is Hilda Hoffman, and my father, Otto Schmidt..."

And here's an example of less idea-rich sentence:

"I was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on May 24, 1913, and was baptized in St. James Church..."

Snowdon discovered that sisters who scored poorly on these two measures — like the second example — were much more likely to develop dementia. Sisters within the lower third of the sample with respect to idea density, for example, were 60 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's than a sister in the upper third. In fact, using the essays, the researchers could predict with 92 percent accuracy whether the brain of a particular sister, investigated after their death, would contain the plaques and lesions in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer's Disease."

The mind at rest tends to stay at rest, I suppose. This sort of basic intuition is probably why I like to play word games and make improvised sentences. Scrabble and challenge-speed-scrabble and 1000 Blank White Cards all sharpen this knife that I use to carve the world into consumable portions. If that blade ever dulls, the process will cease; in a very real way it will prevent my consumption of consciousness.

- J

6/8/10

Yesterday I wrote you a grumpy email about how I was feeling down. Then I didn't send it, which is a decision I am still behind. I need to take my grumpiness to God, because He knows when to comfort me and when to shake me up and say 'get over yourself'.
Now it is breaktime, and I had the good idea to start blogging to you in the mornings here at work. I just had a slice of swiss cheese on toast, and it's a nice morning. I'm listening to Pastor Mark preach through Genesis in my earbuds, and it's good.
I need to go back to work now, but I'm thinking of you. And werewolves.

- J

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1Th 5:19

6/2/10

"You know, Erin actually averages 5.6 bounces to the ounce, which is well above average."

- J