Bod for God and my weekend

This is a new one, Pastor Steve Reynolds from VA has a new lecture out entitled, "Bod for God." I saw a clip of it on the Daily Show, and in this clip, Reynolds claims (in response to the question if God really cares about someones wieght) that, "the two basic things in the bible is to eat less and exercise more." HAHA, I could get really upset with this one, but it's just too easy. I guess one thing is that he's making money off of this, another thing it helped me realize is that he's not the first. I myself have never focused on the dietary requirements of Jesus when dealing with being "in shape" and never have I thought it to be such a pressing issue, especially when you consider the state of the human spirit and the world today. Apparently Pat Roberston even developed a weight loss shake to help fellow christians lose those pesky pounds, because we don't already have that on the market right? But I guess there are certain believers who just don't want to buy into the vain and secular world of weight loss and fitness products. Ughh. I suppose at a certain point in a pastor's career, it becomes a challenge to find new things to preach about? Or maybe he thought this issue was so important that he did indeed have to market it with a catchy slogan and interviews on FOX? What world do they exist in? What amazing world do they live in, in which the problems facing Christians are so minimal, inconsequential or merely exhausted, that a topic such as "turning to God to fill up this yearning instead of the refrigerator," is a focus. "About 40 percent of you need to lose weight," he told his congregation at Capital Baptist Church. "When you love potluck more than God, it's serious." Wow. It's all business I suppose. I'm gonna go eat a hot dog. Just google the name Steve Reynolds for more information, or "Bod for God."


Anyway, we just got back to VA yesterday from our weekend jaunt to play two college shows. This was a fun trip, I drove down a day early to test out my new car on the open highway, I was mighty impressed with the fuel economy. Our first show was in Florida and I saw some friends, ate sushi and had technical difficulties. From Florida, we drove up the 301 through the northern part of the state. It was a road that reminds me of how (maybe) time and money only affect certain parts of the state, while others seems to get caught in this blackhole of backwood despondance (because there is no "value" or "real estate opportunity"). But the funny thing is, it was all visual and superficial, I could not accurately describe the spirit of such towns, which may be quite abundant. And I mean no offense to those who find such towns refreshing. So I guess I'm admitting that my description of such a town is that of a passer bye, a passer bye that has been suburbanized and drunken on commerce since his first trip to Hollywood. Perhaps I should go back and live in that town to put my hands in the dirt and come back to some kind of earthly reality, grow my hair long enough to take root. I'm waiting for my "truman show" epiphany. (pop culture nod) Moving on..the next show was at Chapel Hill in North Carolina. This show went well, I loved it. The first band , a band called "The Old Ceremony" was really good, and everything (depsite the sterile auditorium) felt very warm. Talk to you guys and girls later.

Happy birthday Darth Delkins.

eternal truths?

"The Christian religion, then, teaches men these two truths; that there is a God whom men can know, and that there is a corruption in their nature which renders them unworthy of Him. It is equally important to men to know both these points; and it is equally dangerous for man to know God without knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his own wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer who can free him from it. The knowledge of only one of these points gives rise either to the pride of philosophers, who have known God, and not their own wretchedness, or to the despair of atheists, who know their own wretchedness, but not the Redeemer. Let us herein examine the order of the world and see if all things do not tend to establish these two chief points of this religion: Jesus Christ is end of all, and the centre to which all tends. Whoever knows Him knows the reason of everything.
Those who fall into error err only through failure to see one of these two things. We can, then, have an excellent knowledge of God without that of our own wretchedness and of our own wretchedness without that of God. But we cannot know Jesus Christ without knowing at the same time both God and our own wretchedness.
Therefore I shall not undertake here to prove by natural reasons either the existence of God, or the Trinity, or the immortality of the soul, or anything of that nature; not only because I should not feel myself sufficiently able to find in nature arguments to convince hardened atheists, but also because such knowledge without Jesus Christ is useless and barren. Though a man should be convinced that numerical proportions are immaterial truths, eternal and dependent on a first truth, in which they subsist and which is called God, I should not think him far advanced towards his own salvation.
The God of Christians is not a God who is simply the author of mathematical truths, or of the order of the elements; that is the view of heathens and Epicureans. He is not merely a God who exercises His providence over the life and fortunes of men, to bestow on those who worship Him a long and happy life. That was the portion of the Jews. But the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Christians, is a God of love and of comfort, a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom He possesses, a God who makes them conscious of their inward wretchedness, and His infinite mercy, who unites Himself to their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than Himself."

I just started reading some Pascal the other night and he says some interesting things about Christ. Often times I wonder why I read so many accounts written by man concerning the nature of God, and I so very seldom read the bible. I can't answer the question completely, the bible is hard to fathom, and it is hard to apply. It is very distant and unreal to me when I read it. When I read of other people's understanding of God, it makes God real, maybe the literary technique, or maybe it's just the fact that if a normal person can gather these ideas, then why can't I? It's some sort of fallacy. It's like I don't know how to read the bible or something strange like that. I've been having a hard time making sense of anything, my mind seems to exist in some fog where any lead I have on a breakthrough merely ends up at a point of contradiction, nothing is connecting. I'm adrift in some current circling an absolute truth, which by definition itself can be understood as a paradox. The "leap of faith", the fact that God will never be understood, and yet, we are to have faith in him. We are to put faith in something we don't understand. I can say that I believe that God loves me, but those are merely words. Kierkegaard talks about the idea that having faith (by defintion of "faith") implies doubt at the same time. It would not take faith to believe in something you can not doub (like the objective), a rather rational way of looking at it perhaps. God is simple, and he is just as complex. I'm just a ball on the end of some tether in space, miles and miles of rope twist and knot and swirl all leading back to the one thing I can't deny...God as the center of reason and motive, and love. This cognitive awareness is a handicap.

"For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed."

albert camus

"And from the ends of the earth, across thousands of miles of land and sea, kindly, well meaning speakers tried to voice their fellow-feeling, and indeed did so, but at the same time proved the utter incapacity of every man truly to share in suffering that he cannot see"

""In fact, like our fellow citizens, Rieux was caught off his guard, and we should understand his hesitations in the light of the this fact; and similarily understand how he was torn between conflicting fears and confidence. When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid, it can't last long." But though a war may well be "too stupid, " that doesn't prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting in its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.
In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy for the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away and the humanists are the first of all, because they haven't taken thier precautions. Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be modest, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How should they have given a thought to anything like plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free as long as their are pestilences."

winter of discontent.

boy, my "instincts" really screwed me this last winter. no good.