Singing a New Song

LOST: What It All Means

2010-05-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

It's taken me 119 out of the 121.5 hours of the show, but I've finally figured all of Lost out. Surprisingly, I figured it out away from the actual show. You see, over the past five years I have made friends all over North America. I have friends back home in Kingsport, friends from Harding, friends I interned with in Huntsville, friends here in Canada, and friends all over the place. One thing that brings many of us together: Lost. This show has created a community. Not just the annoying internet community of message boards and blogs that meticulously scan evidence like a CSI team, come up with stupid theories, or endlessly complain to the point that you wonder why they even watch the show. But it's a community of people who I love in my life that I enjoy discussing, debating, and theologically analyzing the show with. I love after every episode texting my friend Drew, theorizing with my friend Wes on facebook chat, commenting on my youth minister's blog, and coming up to my friends at church saying, "Yo, did you SEE Lost?"

Above all, that's what I'm going to miss most about Lost when it ends Sunday night. I'm going to miss the characters, and the twists and turns of the plot, and how it always keeps me guessing, and the producers' podcasts, and the emotion, drama, and fun of Lost. But mostly I'm going to miss the conversations (many of them deeply spiritual) and the enjoyment I get out of sharing in this great show with a community around me (many of whom live thousands of miles away).

And in "The End" (pun intended), I think that's what Lost is all about. The show is about a group of characters who are seeking out redemption in a journey of renewal as a community. They do it through several interlocking (both past, present, future, and sideways) relationships that often conflict, encourage, disintegrate and cooperate. Whether the characters are dealing with parental issues, sins they have committed, emotional and spiritual baggage; together many have learned that the past doesn't matter and they can grow as a group into who they were meant to be. The show has taught us that our relationships and the choices we make with them MATTER, both in terms of how they affect those around us, but more importantly in the way ALL of our stories intersect with THE story that is being told through all creation.

In the fifth episode of season one, Jack makes a statement that soon became the mantra of the show that the characters must "Live together or die alone." And this is true on a small level with the groups of fans that enjoy the show together. But mostly on a meta-level that all of us can either choose to wallow alone in isolation or instead to reach our highest capacities of redemption and fulfillment both as individuals and as a people when we truly journey together in community. And isn't that truly what the kingdom of God is all about? A flawed and broken people joining together, bearing each others' burdens, and building each other up into a new creation as we seek to become a part of the story God has been telling.

And maybe that is how we all journey from Lost.......to Found.

Bulletin Article-The Drama of Mark

2010-02-22T12:17:00.000-08:00

I wrote this last week for our bulletin and I figured I'd go ahead and put in on here as well:

As we reach the climactic scenes in the narrative of Mark, it is interesting that we begin to realize the drama of the story. Have you ever noticed that Biblical narratives provide great drama in a literary sense? These stories, whether they are in Genesis, Exodus, 1 & 2 Samuel, Daniel, the gospels, Acts, and in so many other places throughout the whole Bible, give us stories that are every bit as exciting and dramatic as famous stories, films, and literary works throughout history. Especially when reading the four gospel narratives, I can always feel the tension, the emotion, and the intense drama as the story comes to a climax. As Noel mentioned last week, we can see the severe mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical trauma that Jesus goes through in his last twenty-four hours, beginning with his impassioned plea to his father in Gethsemane. As the night continues, we can see the tension continue to build and build throughout the story.

However, what differentiates the gospel story and the other great stories in the Bible from famous works of literature is that these events actually happened. The reality of these events makes them all the more powerful. They’re not just tall tales, folklore, or parables. These were real people experiencing real emotions and persevering through real trials. This makes it fascinating to see how these real events mirror the traditional storytelling narratives so well, with the basic designs of introduction, conflict, plot, climax, and resolution. Perhaps the reason why people identify so well with this traditional plot structure is because God has divinely placed the essence of THE story deeply within us. This of course is the story that God has been writing since the beginning of time, the meta-narrative of all history, which is the story of God bringing his people back into relationship with him. This story begins in Eden, climaxes at the cross, and ends with God reigning with his people forever and ever. Since this story is placed so deeply within our souls, we naturally respond to any story, book, movie, or even television show that mirrors the plot narrative of THE story. It’s why we root for Luke to blow up the Death Star, why we hope Frodo can make it to Mount Doom, why we are happy for Wall-E and Eva to get back to each other, and even why we cheer for Hugh Grant to marry whatever woman he’s dating in whatever chick flick he’s in.

So when we reach the climax of the Gospel, it is natural for it to affect us in a deep and poignant way. Because this is the most important moment of the story of all stories. So how do we respond to this beautiful chapter in the story? Do we put the book down and go to bed? Or do we respond by finding OUR place in the story and play the part that God has been writing for us since the beginning of time? Because this story is continuing on today and WE are the supporting characters. May we all seek to quit trying to tell our own stories and instead take up our roles in HIS story.

-Dylan

2000-2009: The Decade Without a Name

2009-11-24T09:40:00.000-08:00

I named this post above, because unlike the 80's, 90's, etc. this decade has never really had a consistent name. It's been called the "zeros," "2000's," and the "Aughts." I usually call it "this decade", but I don't know what I'm going call it next year. (Speaking of which, can we go ahead and get an early start in conclusively naming this next decade, so we don't have the same problem. Do we call it the "Teens" or the "Tens"? Let's decide on this). But not only that, this decade has lacked an identity in culture and remembrance.

The 50's were remembered for good times, family values, and rock and roll (as well as the beginning of pop culture). The sixties had social change, the hippy movement, and incredible music. The 70's had great movements in rock with Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Springsteen, etc., and disco. The 80's had MTV, Michael Jackson, the Brat Pack movies, ridiculous clothing and hair styles, and Bird/Magic making the NBA huge. The 90's had grunge and the explosion of rap in the early 90's, followed by boy bands and Brittney Spears in the late 90's, phenomenal movies (google the Best Picture nominees/winners from the 90's...it's an incredible list), good tv with Seinfeld, ER, and Friends (remember back when NBC was king?), and Jordan.

Now you don't have to like the things that characterized these decades, but at least you can admit that they defined them. How do you find what defined this decade? Music sales have collapsed since 2004. There's been no defining band or even genre this decade. For the past decades the defining band/artist was easy: Elvis, Beatles, Zeppelin, Jackson, and Nirvana. Would Coldplay win it for this decade? U2? Timberlake? The top 10 selling artists this decade were Eminem, the Beatles (that says all you need to know. The #2 selling band this decade has been broken up for 40 years), Tim McGraw, Toby Keith (No!!!), Brittney Spears, Kenny Chesney, Nelly, Linkin Park, Creed, and Jay-Z. But I wouldn't say any of those artists really defined the decade (Eminem's 30 million sales pales in comparison with the top selling artist in the 90's: Garth Brooks with almost 100 million sales). The way I would define music for this decade is the I-Tunes Generation. What I mean is that most people don't really buy and consume albums or artists any more. Instead they just hear some random song at a coffee house, figure out what the name of it on their phone, and then buy/pirate it and put it on I-tunes. So most people's music looks like a hodgepodge of random acoustic ballads and pop hits.

Movies were solid this decade. There were great franchises (LOTR, Star Wars, Matrix, Pirates, etc.), some great comedies from the various comedy mafias (Apatow, Ferrel, Wilson brothers, Sandler, Stiller), and the "Oscar" movies were great, but again, not as good as the 90's. Luckily there have been several defining movies this decade (The Dark Knight, LOTR, Anchorman) so we're ok there. Perhaps the only pop culture category in which this decade excelled was television. You could argue that the best movies this decade were on tv. This decade had the two most critically acclaimed shows ever in the Sopranos and the Wire (I've never seen them, but I know the critics love them), currently acclaimed shows in "Mad Men" and "30 Rock," the show I would argue is the greatest show of all time in LOST, plus other great shows with The Office, How I Met Your Mother, West Wing, Battlestar, Arrested Development, and some cult favorite one season wonders with Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, and Firefly. Shows like The Daily Show and the Colbert Report became a mix between comedy and social/media awareness. Reality shows exploded this decade with American Idol and Survivor leading the way. The decade saw as an over-fascination with celebrities to the point where people became "celebrities" without even really doing anything (Paris Hilton, Kardashians, etc..).

The news stories that defined this decade all basically revolved around the singular event that most defined the decade in 9/11. The event has changed the nation, the world, cultural dialogue, politics, and spawned two wars and changed the way wars are fought. Many, if not most, of the other major events of the decade are either directly or indirectly tied to 9/11. The aforementioned Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the 2004 and 2008 elections, and the events of the Bush Administration. Other major events included the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the China earthquakes, a growing dependence on technology and social networking via blogs, Myspace, facebook, and twitter, a growing focus on energy, climate, and conservation, and the current financial meltdown.

So where does this leave a generation who spent their formative years in a tumultuous decade that lacked definition and identity? Will this lack of normalcy, consistency, and identity lead to a continued rise in a postmodern fickle worldview? Or perhaps could it raise up a generation who does not define themselves based on pop-culture, and can learn to adapt to ever-changing circumstances and ideas?

My age ranged from 12-22 in this decade. I suppose that this decade was "my decade" as much as other people claim to be "children" of whatever decade they grew up in. I don't really lament this decade's lack of identity, and I am learning to thrive in a turbulent age. Many in my peer group have graduated college only to find an economy in shatters and no jobs available for them. But I think that this crazy decade has left us better prepared for difficult circumstances than previous generations might have been. We know that this next century is likely going to continue to be chaotic with changing economies, diminished American power, climate change, and different cultural values. But I think we're able to roll with it and just handle whatever comes next. Many people have labeled the Millennial Generation (those born between 1983 and 2001) as the "Second Great Generation" because of the exponential rise of work in volunteering and social causes among Millennials. I think that my generation has really become empowered to not just talk, but act in behalf of social justice issues and has a unique perspective on global commonality. Also, Millenials are not constrained by traditional structures in politics, economics, religion, and nationalities. We're more free to think, act, love, and serve outside of the boxes originally provided for us.

It is imperative for the church to empower, equip, and allow this generation to live out the kingdom of God in new and exciting ways in the next decade. I've heard before that the church could thrive in Postmodern culture because it provides structure in a chaotic time. That may be true, but I would argue that the church could instead thrive by getting chaotic itself. The kingdom of God was never meant to be rigid, streamlined, and predictable. The kingdom of God is an ADVENTURE and a REVOLUTION where we never know where it's headed. Because God works in ways that we could never imagine and acts like a consuming fire and was never meant to be put in a box.

Throughout its history, the church has tended to thrive in turbulent times. Right now seems perfect.

'Roid Rage

2009-02-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

Today in an interview with Peter Gammons, Alex Rodriguez confirmed that he had taken steroids from 2001-2003.

I used to get angry when these stories came out. I hated Bonds, Giambi, and Sosa for cheating the game of basbeall and the sanctity of a game that takes numbers very seriously. But after years and years of exponential steroid stories, I'm drained, jaded and just sad. I barely even blame A-Rod. It's tough to blame players for just trying to keep up with the status quo of pitchers and hitters juicing up to improve their game. I mostly just blame Bud Selig, the players union, and the game of baseball for turning a blind eye to this in the 90's and early part of this decade and not cleaning this up sooner. Stories like today are the price that baseball must pay as more and more stars and more numbers become tainted.

Baseball is probably the most important for stats and numbers. It was the first sport to become popular in fantasy games (although you can argue that fantasy football has passed it in terms of popularity). We used to hold these records as something truly special. Maris' 61 home runs, Aaron's 755, Dimaggio's 56 game hit streak. Now every single stat from 1987-until A-Rod retires (because he'll likely break a lot of major records) will be completely tainted.

It makes me sad for the sport I love. I remember getting caught up in the '98 home run race with McGwire and Sosa. Now, that memory means very little. Now even some of my favorite players, like Jeff Bagwell, and David Ortiz, certainly fall under the suspicion of steroids at the very least. Roger Clemens was one of my favorite pitchers when he rocked out the '04-'06 seasons with the Astros, and now I know it could have all been a lie. Those memories are tainted. This is just another case of professional sports spitting on its fans. As ticket prices soar while the economy plummets, we can really see that pro sports care little about fans. MLB turned a blind eye and implicity encouraged steroid use in the 90's because of the simple reason that HOME RUNS MADE MONEY.It's the fans that suffer for this.

Maybe one day Major League Baseball will have some credibility again and we can take records and numbers seriously again. I hope that day comes.......someday. Until then we're just going to have more days like this as more big names come out.

40 days until Opening day........and it can't come soon enough.

Best Super Bowl ever?

2009-02-01T23:20:00.000-08:00

I wasn't too excited about this year's Super Bowl, but it turned out to be an instant classic and at least one of the greatest Super Bowls ever. It had everything you could want. Lots of lead changes. Good classic football players. Big hits. An underdog going for an upset. A huge touchdown returned for an interception by Harrison. A long bomb to Fitzgerald. And a classic drive by Rothlesberger with 2:34 culminating in the TD pass to Holmes in the corner of the end zone, which will become one of the most famous plays in NFL History.

But was it the greatest Super Bowl ever?

Well, lets run down the list of greatest super bowls in chronological order. Unfortunately, there aren't many close ones, since they usually just turn into a blowout.

Super Bowl X: Pittsburgh 21, Dallas 17
Close match-up between two awesome defenses.

Super Bowl XIII: Pittsuburgh 35, Dallas 31
Great shootout that went back and forth.

Super Bowl XXIII San Francisco 20, Cincinnati 16
Montana leads game winning TD drive

Super Bowl XXV N.Y. Giants 20, Buffalo 19
Scott Norwood! Wide Right!

Super Bowl XXXII Denver 31, Green Bay 24
Close game as John Elway and the Broncos upsets the favored Packers.

Super Bowl XXXIV St. Louis 23, Tennessee 16
Kevin Dyson is one yard short! NOOOOOO!!!!!

XXXVI New England 20, St. Louis 17
Brady drives down the Pats to set up Vinateri's field goal for a HUGE upset.

Super Bowl XXXVIII New England 32, Carolina 29
Great game, although it's not remembered all that well. Another last second Vinateri field goal.

XXXIX New England 24, Philadelphia 21
Philly made it close but had TERRIBLE clock management down the stretch and ran out of time.

XLII N.Y. Giants 17, New England 14
HUGE upset as the Giants end the Pats perfect record. Classic game winning drive by Eli including the amazing catch by David Tyree.

XLIII Pittsburgh 27, Arizona 23
Holmes catch for the win

Most analysts would probably say last year's Giants win was the greatest ever due to the historical significance of ending the Pats perfect season. But that was a really boring game until the 4th quarter. My personal pick would be the Rams/Titans Super bowl. That 2nd half was incredible. The Titans made a huge comeback, followed by a huge deep pass to Isaac Bruce, followed by McNair's incredible last minute drive (that never gets enough credit), followed by the infamous one-yard-short play. That was just a great game. I would probably rank tonight's game 2nd. It really was a well-played back and forth game by two teams and two quarterbacks that both wanted it bad. Plus, I enjoyed this one a lot hanging out with my friends in my apartment. So, my top 5 will be

1. Rams/Titans
2. Steelers/Cards
3. Giants/Pats
4. Pats/Rams
5. 49'ers/Bengels

Although my FAVORITE Super Bowls ever were XXVIII and XXX when the Cowboys won (I don't remember when the won XXVII. I think I had to go to bed.) But those weren't close games, cause they destroyed the Bills and Steelers.

What do you think is the best super bowl ever?

Lost Showdown

2009-01-12T13:32:00.000-08:00

This is an awesome thing ABC is doing. It's a bracket of all the best moments in Lost history. You can go and vote here:

http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index?pn=showdown

The first round matchups are:

Season 1 division:
The Crash vs. "Don't Tell me what I can't do"
Opening the Hatch vs. Walt's abduction

Season 2 division:
"See ya in another Life brother" vs. Swan Station Map
Michael frees Ben vs. Desmond turns key

Season 3 division:
"We have to go back" vs. Kate and Sawyer hook up
Locke's falls from building vs. Charlie's sacrifice

Season 4 Division:
Desmond and Penny phone call vs. The Oceanic Six
Ben Moves the Island vs. Sawyer's goodbye

I picked "Don't Tell me what I can't do," Opening the hatch, "See ya in another life," Desmond turns key, "We have to go back," Charlie's Sacrifice, Desmond phone call, and Sawyer's goodbye.

What are your picks?

Headed to LP Field!

2008-12-05T15:40:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I will head out for Nashville for our annual Titans game! I am so pumped that I get to see in person this historic 11-1 (hopefully 12-1 after the game) season!

I can't wait to see Chris Johnson run all over the Browns defense, watch Albert Haynesworth pound the depleted Cleveland O-line, and the Irish laddie Cortland Finnegan hopefully pick off Ken Dorsey. It should be a fun game and a great weekend!Hopefully, I'll have pictures when I get back.

Our seats are in section 310, so look for up for us if you're watching the game on tv.

A Thanksgiving Game to be Thankful For-Pt 2

2008-11-27T14:59:00.001-08:00

Update-6:02 P.M.

What a great day! After the Titans shelacked the Lions 47-10, the Cowboys have rolled easily in the first half to a 24-6 lead. Tony Romo has been almost perfect, for 210 yd and 2 TD. Our O-line has been awesome, giving Romo all day, and our Defense has 5 sacks and a fumble recovery in just one half.

So, both my teams are looking dominant so far. And don't look now, but UT basketball starts tonight. So, it's been a great Thanksgiving so far. I'm pumped to see how my teams play in December and how they finish up the regular season. But for right now, I'm just enjoying some Thanksgiving dominance.

A Thanksgiving Game to be Thankful For

2008-11-27T11:01:00.000-08:00

Live Update-2:01:

Well, this certainly makes up for our first loss of the season. We are at this moment up 35-3 in the first half! Chris Johnson is already over 120 yards with 2 TD, Lendale White has 2 TD, and we have a defensive TD. I know the Lions are pretty bad, but this has been one of the most dominant halfs on both sides of the ball that I've seen this year. It makes me very excited to see the rest of this season. My favorite stat from the first half: Titans TD: 5; Lions First downs: 3.

I'll try to be back with more updates from the 2nd half and from the Cowboys game later in the day. Also, my mom's fried chicken and cornbread dressing are coming up soon. I love Thanksgiving!

Relationships and Bonhoeffer

2008-11-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

This semester in my mentoring group with Dr. Neller, we have been reading The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It has been really good, and it is nice to read the book that has been quoted by so many other books that I have read. It's tough on the church and really blasts those who offer "cheap grace," so it offers a very strong view of what discipleship really looks like.

Today I was reading this and I came across something really cool. Bonhoeffer was talking about relationships and how we have to be able to leave any relationships that claims immediacy over Christ. This sounds tough, but he explains that it is only through Christ that we can have true relationships, and any relationship without him is in the end quite superficial. He says:

"We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempt to overcome it by means of natural association or emotional or spiritual union. There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however frank and open our behavior, we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through him [...]

But the same Mediator who makes us individuals is also the founder of a new fellowship. He stands in the center between my neighbor and myself. He divides, but he also unites. Thus although the direct way to our neighbor is barred, we now find the new and only real way to him-the way which passes through the Mediator.

This really struck me. I can really see how relationships with my friends are affected by this. Those with whom I have a spiritual connection are always deeper and more real. I hope that as I leave college next May and move to the next chapter in my life, that I can always seek to build my relationships on Christ.

Tennyson on Happiness

2008-11-18T15:26:00.000-08:00

"The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions. "

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

Bottom-Up Bailout?

2008-11-16T20:41:00.000-08:00

Today on Meet the Press, the political commentator Tavis Smiley had a very interesting perspective on the economic crisis. I found the transcript, so here is the quote verbatim:

"I think that government has to always be challenged to be responsible to its citizens who are disadvantaged and disenfranchised. And the truth of the matter is that this entire economic crisis has been a top-down conversation and not a bottom-up conversation. Detroit, the city, is the poorest city in the country. In some, in, in some economic areas and categories, the unemployment rate in Detroit is three times, triple the national average. And so everyday people, the working poor and the very poor, cannot be left out of this conversation. And so I don't think that poor people--although we had three presidential debates, let's be honest about it, where the word poverty never came up, where the working poor and the very poor were never discussed in three presidential debates. I don't think, Tom, that the working poor and the very poor in this country begrudge people who are better off. They understand, I think, that there are three million jobs tied into this auto industry. At the same time, where is the conversation about corporate mendacity? Where is the conversation about everyday people and how this government is responsible to those persons who are disadvantaged, disenfranchised? I've not seen enough of that conversation yet. We've been talking about bailing out industry, talking about bailing out Wall Street. Every now and then, some conversation about Main Street. But no conversation about the side street, and that's where too many Americans live these days."

This really got my attention. There's been so much focus in this political season on stimulating the economy, bailing out Wall Street, and helping the middle class, that we often forget the people who are affected the most by these difficult economic times are those below the poverty line. God only knows how bad this thing is going to get in the next several weeks, months, and years. But as a church, we have to be sure we don't just focus on the stock market, but also on the poor, homeless, and unemployed.

A few friends and I were talking this weekend about whether the government should bail out the auto industry to keep the big three companies from going bankrupt. We gave the pros and cons that we had heard and talked about how it would affect the overall economy, and it seemed like there was no perfect answer to the problem. But none of us had thought about the disaster this could wreak on the city of Detroit, which is already in an economic tailspin. I have some friends from Detroit, and they've talked about how the city of Detroit has built the highways so that they go completely over the slums, so that you can go completely from the suburbs to downtown Detroit without seeing the immense poverty that is affecting the lower class of the city. It's time we start looking at the neglected. It's time that we don't just give $700 billion to those on Wall Street, but also to the millions in hunger around the world. It's time we judge success based on the least of these, instead of the global corporations.

I know stimulating the overall economy is important. I know helping the middle class is important. But let's not forget those trapped in the slums, because they need a bail-out too.

Top 5 LOST Episodes

2008-11-13T21:06:00.001-08:00

So, there's lots of things to be excited about right now. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Senior year, friends coming back from Greece, graduation, and of course the Titans are 9-0! And now that ABC has announced the premier date for Season 5 of LOST for January 21, I'm officially getting excited. Just 68 days to go! Honestly, season 4 was so good that I was content with having no LOST for a while. It was like a great thanksgiving meal that keeps you full for 8 months. But now I'm definitely getting pumped, and I have no idea what to expect. So, I figured I would commemorate my pump-itude (my word I made up for a pumped attitude) by rolling out my top 5 Lost episodes from the first 4 seasons. So, without further ado:

#5-The Constant-(Season 4/Episode 5)

When I first saw this episode, my mind felt like mush when it ended, and I was frustrated that it didn't really extend the overall narrative of the show. But on further review, this is really the best episode of last season (which was a fantastic season). This was a Desmond episode, which are always weird. Throughout the episode, Desmond keeps flashing back between the current time and 1996, when he was in the army. As he keeps flashing back, he finally discovers that he must find a constant in both time periods and tries to contact Penelope. This lead to one of the greatest Lost scenes of all time when Desmond finally talks to Penelope on the phone and they discuss how they will find each other again.

This show was a big risk from the producers. They had to interrupt the overall storyline to present one of the weirdest time travel experiences ever on television. But it ultimately paid off, and gave us one of the best stand alone episodes in Lost. While I enjoy most Lost episodes for how they fit into the overall storyline, this was just a fantastic single hour of television.

#4-Pilot (Parts 1 and 2)

Lost burst onto the scene with this episode and nothing was ever the same. This entire episode was brilliantly planned by the writers, beginning with the initial close up of Jack's eye, followed by the 20 minute action sequence of the plane crash, the introduction of the monster and the polar bear, the shocking death of the pilot, the creepy French lady over the recording, and finally Charlie's statement that defined the show, "Guys, where are we?"

However, the best part about this episode was how it carefully set up these incredible characters and presented Lost as a character-driven show with fantasy elements, instead of the other way around. By the end of the pilot, we already felt like we knew these characters, and we were excited to learn more. This provided the framework that the whole show was built.

#3-Exodus Part 2 (Season 1/Episode 24)

Following the premier of the first season comes the finale of the first season (still my favorite season, by the way). I know this was originally a 2-part episode spread over 2 weeks, but I'm going to focus on the 2nd part. This was a fantastic episode beginning with Arzt blowing up and Hurley's classic line, "Dude, you have some Arzt on you." While most episodes focus on one character, this one showed flashbacks from every character in the cast, proving that this is an ensemble show. It also neatly summed up the entire first season, giving the season a fulfilling, distinct plotline that no other season has been able to re-create. The scene at the end with everyone getting on flight 815 with Michael Giacchino's piano in the background was beautiful. This episode also set up the Man of science/Man of faith debate between Jack and Locke which has really driven the show since. It also provided a perfect cliff hanger for the summer with Walt getting kidnapped by the Others and Jack and Locke peering down into the hatch. But that was back when we only had to wait 4 months in between seasons, instead of the 8 that we have to wait for now.

#2-Through the Looking Glass-(Season 3/Episode 22)

This was another 2-part season finale. I remember watching this one in Jason's living room, and it was one of the most exciting moments on tv ever. The episode was action packed, with fights with the others on the beach and below in the Looking glass station, plus the scene where Jack beat the snot out of Ben. It had the classic showdown between Jack and Locke. It had tons of tension over trying to get into contact with the freighter. Plus it had a fantastic heroic end for Charlie as he died letting Desmond know the boat was not Penny's.

However, the episode's best moments happened in Jack's flashforward. Of course, at the time, we thought it was just a flashback, but we didn't know where it was in Jack's storyline. This was Matthew Fox's best acting, and he was superb as the drug addicted, depressed, future Jack. When I finally realized it was a flash forward, it floored me for weeks. The final cries of Jack, "We have to go back! We have to go back!" were probably the best way to ever cap off a season. This was the biggest game-changer Lost has ever had and perfectly set up the flashforward/get off the island plotline of season 4.

#1-All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues-(Season 1/Episode 11)

This was another great Jack-isode, and still lives up as my favorite Lost episode ever. This was a tense episode as Jack, Kate, Locke, and Boone went after Ethan after he kidnapped Charlie and Claire. After an awesome fight scene with Ethan, Jack and Kate eventually found Charlie hung up in a tree. After minutes of Jack giving cpr and the sad piano music, I really thought Charlie was dead, but then Jack went at it again and Charlie somehow gasped for air. The flashback really made the episode though. After his dad ended up killing a patient, Jack eventually goes along with the lie that the patient died of natural causes, until he eventually stands up at a board meeting and said it was Christian's fault. This wasn't the biggest episode in terms of the overall plot, but it's still the most entertaining and most re-watchable for me.

Honorable mention goes to last season's finale, "There's No place like home" parts 1, 2, and 3. This episode was meant to be seen as a 3 part arch, so it really is like Lost: The Movie. It was probably the most packed episode storyline-wise in the history of the show. I'm still sorting it all out. It really culminated the entire arch of season 4. The storyline on island and in the flashforwards were awesome. I still need to watch it a few more times, before I can make a good judgment on it, but for now, it doesn't quite crack the top 5.

So, there's my top 5 so far. I'm hoping season 5 will add some more to that list, and I'm sure it will. What are your top 5?

What's Next?

2008-11-04T23:08:00.000-08:00

The guiding phrase for the show the West Wing was, "What's Next?" Today after the longest and most arduous election comes to an end, we all must come together and say, "What's next?"

Tonight was a fun night for me and many of my friends. We had Obama cookies, cheered, hugged, and had some sparkling grape juice (non-alcoholic of course) when the election was called. But I know that most of my friends are Republicans, and tonight was not as exciting for them. And they are good, amazing Christians who honestly want what's best for the country and the kingdom of God. I want to say that John McCain is a good man, and he likely would have been a good President. He didn't run a perfect campaign, but for the most part, he kept a respectful dialog. He gave a very gracious concession speech tonight and I think helped to start move the country back together again. And let me point out that while all his aids were telling him to bring up Jeremy Wright, McCain was too honorable to go that deep in the dirt (even Hillary Clinton attacked on that......and she's in the same party!) To all my Republican friends, I hope that we can all come together and work to let's God's light shine out in this country and the whole world. Cause in the end, it matters little who is in charge at the top of government. What matters is what is going on down here as we work to spread the kingdom of God among the poor, broken, and hopeless.

So, thank God, this election is over. We must now ask "What's next?" What's next for President-Elect Obama? ( wow, that's fun to say) What's next for this country? What's next for the world? What's next for the people of God? What's next as we all reach out and try to achieve our highest hopes and strongest ideals? Tomorrow is a new day. What's next?

Phil Fulmer bleeds orange

2008-11-03T22:26:00.001-08:00

Today is a tough day for UT fans. Most of us know that it's been time for Phil Fulmer to step down, but it's still tough to see him go. Phil has been the only UT coach I've ever known, and it was so great to have his familiar face on the sideline through the good and bad times in Knoxville. I think it's in everyone's best interests for Phil to step down, but it was still tough to watch this press conference. Every UT fan should be thankful for what Fulmer has done for our team. 3 SEC titles, a national championship, and a 75% winning percentage. Thanks Phil, we'll always have a spot on Rocky Top open for you.

Melchizedek and Stoic Philosophy

2008-11-02T23:43:00.000-08:00

What do these two things have in common? I know everything about both now!

For the past month, the date of November 3rd has been looming like an execution date. Tomorrow, both my major term papers for Advanced Into to New Testament, and Old Testament Seminar are due (on the same day!!!! Can you believe that?). Over the past couple of weeks, I have written over 40 pages of notes on 35 sources, condensed into 22 pages for the actual papers.

I wrote my NT paper on "Paul's Theology in Relation to Stoic Philosophy" and my OT paper on Melchizedek. I've learned a lot from my research and I can tell you all you would ever want to know about these topics, and then some. What I've basically come away with though is that Bible scholars have way too much time on their hands and like to make up crazy ideas to get books and papers published (ex: Paul formed his beliefs on women from Stoics! Melchizedek is superior to Jesus!) A great deal of time in my papers is spent refuting crazy ideas from these crazy folks.

Anyways, I'm just celebrating tonight and I'm so happy that I can get back to my regular life away from the library and my computer screen. God bless!

Congrats Philadelphia

2008-10-29T22:18:00.000-07:00

I want congratulate the Phillies for winning their first world series title in 28 years. I also want to congratulate Brad Lidge, who was formerly my boy with the Astros until Albert Pujols destroyed his soul in game 5 of the 05' NLCS (I think that home run ball is still traveling in outer space somewhere). But Lidge found his slider again this year and was perfect for saves as a closer. Plus he's a genuinely great guy and I'm very happy to see him win a title. The fans of Philadelphia definitely needed a championship. They haven't won one since Dr. J's 76's won in 1983. I've never been thrilled with Philadelphia fans (they booed Michael Irvin when he was unconscious with the spine injury that ended his career), but they definitely stick with their teams. Enjoy this Philly, and use some of those good feelings to help me out and make sure Obama wins Pennsylvania next week.

Meanwhile, just 156 days until opening day for my teams. Enjoy the off-season and let's get ready for '09!

Kerry Collins is my boy?

2008-10-27T23:15:00.000-07:00

This football season has been very weird for me. My Cowboys were supposed to be the best team in the NFL and they've been on a wild ride so far and I have no idea how they are going to finish.

Meanwhile, my Titans lost Vince Young to injury and craziness, but somehow managed to burst off to a 6-0 start. I was thrilled but a little conflicted. For two reasons:

1. White County Cable is stupid and I hadn't gotten to see a Titans game all year! My excitement has been limited to scoring updates and highlights after the game, so it all feels a little separate and apart for me (I miss living in TN and getting to watch every Titans game, even when we're terrible).

2. Vince Young was my boy! When Steve McNair left the Titans in '06 and Vince ignited a 1-4 team to make it within 1 game of the playoffs, I was fully on board the VY train. I was thrilled with every big play he made and loved his leadership and ability to "just win games." When he had a mediocre-at-best season last year, I defended him tooth and nail, blaming everyone from our terrible receivers to Norm Chow (I still blame all of them too). Vince was my favorite NFL player and I was planning on him keeping that status for the next 10-15 years. I know that teams are more important than individual players, but as a fan you tend to gain an attachment to these guys.

So I was extremely happy about the Titans rocking it out, but felt like something was missing. I wasn't quite attached to this team and its players like I had been before. It's like there was a party going on and I wasn't invited.

That all changed tonight. I finally got to watch a Titans game this season and that game happened to be a HUGE win over the COLTS on MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL to put us at 7-0 for the season. I got to see for myself our crushing defense, our awesome running backs, and........and........

I finally joined the Kerry Collins train! I know I've said some harsh thing about Kerry before, but that was mostly because of my excitement for VY. Okay, I've talked a lot of smack about Kerry, but I've left that behind now. You have to respect this journeyman, wily veteran, game manager, or whatever "insert cliche here" you want to call him. He doesn't put up huge stats, but he makes huge plays. He made several 3rd and long passes tonight for 1st downs, gave us an option to throw on first down, and made several big passes to help us comeback and win this game. Plus he's a great teammate, a classy guy, has great toughness, and has a great redemption story after his problems in Carolina. I'm really excited about where he can help take us this season. Hopefully, VY will one day be the quarterback of our future, but right now Kerry Collins is the quarterback of a very exciting present.

I'm so pumped about this team and it was great to finally beat the Colts in a big game. Our defense is one of the best defenses I've ever seen. We've got awesome corners in Cortland Finnegan and Nick Harper, great safeties, fast linebackers, and a dominating D-line. I love Chris Johnson and I get excited he might take off for a 50 yard run every time he touches the ball. Our team is coming together and we may just be able to pound our way to the top. And yes, Kerry Collins is my boy.

Yearbook Yourself.......I totally stole this from Lucy

2008-10-14T19:26:00.000-07:00

I saw this on Lucy's blog and decided to play around with it and it was just way too much fun. I did this on www.yearbookyourself.com where you get to upload your picture and then put it into different yearbook pictures from the past 60 years. These are my favorites of me.

1952

1968

1970

1976

1978

1980

1982

1986

1990

The election through the eyes of a Christian college student

2008-10-09T13:09:00.000-07:00

Four years ago I was a high school senior watching the '04 election and was very disappointed. Neither candidate had a hint of inspiration, they weren't very different in terms of policies, and neither really seemed to care about the things I cared about. I remember trying to get a little fired up about John Kerry, but was not all that disappointed when he lost.

At that time my sister Laura and I were already looking ahead to potential candidates for '08. We both liked Bill Richardson, the former Secretary of Labor and Governor of New Mexico. I cringed at the thought of another Clinton polarizing America, but she seemed like the most likely winner. That year I also took notice of a senate race in Illinois where this guy Barack Obama was winning 80% of the vote and also had an amazing speech on unity at the DNC. I took notice and Laura and I talked about how fun it would be if he ran someday in 2016.

A year later, I was watching the last season of one of my favorite shows, The West Wing. In the last episodes, the writers gave us a fictional look at an intellectual, clean, and inspiring campaign from both fictional candidates played by Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda. I wondered if there was a anyone in real life who could actually have a campaign like this. I naturally thought of my favorite Republican, John McCain, who always seemed intelligent, moderate, bipartisan, honest, and candid in his politics. I also thought of Richardson and Obama and wondered if any of these people could make it in a real campaign. Nah......couldn't happen.

Last year I began reading and discussing with my friends writers like Lee Camp, Shaine Claiborne, and Tony Campolo. I became very interested in the impoverished and oppressed, and also very dis-enchanted with the government. I realized that our American political system was a worldly kingdom, quite apart and separate from the Kingdom of God. I considered becoming a follower of the writings of David Lipscomb, who thought Christians shouldn't vote or be involved in the military, and never get involved in (and perhaps even oppose) the government.

However, at the same time, the campaigns had already begun and I listened to the candidates. I was excited about the idea of Obama, but as I began to listen to his actual campaign he struck me as a type of politician that I had never heard before in my lifetime. I always hear from history about how John and Robert Kennedy were able to inspire a generation and also helped bring real change to fight segregation in our country (I know LBJ actually signed the Civil Rights Act in '64, but it was due to the legacy and fight from Kennedy). I heard about how FDR was able to use the government to legitimately help the poor and downtrodden. I heard about how Lincoln sought to move us to our best ideals and ended slavery and helped keep the nation together. I saw a glimmer of that in the rhetoric of Obama as he spoke about unity and hope for our nation. But he also spoke about issues I really cared about. He wanted health care available to the poor who couldn't afford it and were thus unable to get the help they needed, helping low-income schools, affordable housing for the poor, expand job opportunities for the lower class, raising the minimum wage, being a better steward of our environment, helping the AIDS crisis in Africa, increasing foreign aid, and making a better commitment to peace and diplomacy around the world. I saw hope not just in him, but perhaps a shift in government across the board (federal, state, local, and diplomatic) that his election could provide. He also seemed a legitimate Christian who took kingdom values seriously. I know many call me gullible, naive, and unrealistic to buy all the hype "hook, line, and sinker," but I believed this could be real and I wanted to gamble that perhaps our hopes could be realized in a new type of government.

I was committed to Obama by September '07, but there was no chance he was actually going to win. Clinton and Giuliani were going to sweep the board and I was ready for another nasty campaign and my final separation from politics. But I hoped that Obama could make it close in the primaries and get his message out for future elections. Then during Christmas break, Obama had a huge upset win in Iowa and suddenly there was a chance he could win this thing. For the next several months, I followed the highs and lows of the campaign like watching one of my favorite sports teams. I was crushed by the loss in New Hampshire and pumped up at an official Obama Campaign party in Little Rock when we watched the South Carolina returns. We had an exciting party on Super Tuesday and cheered for every state that went Obama's way. Then we watched Obama win 11 straight primaries in February and we finally really thought we were going to win. However, Clinton hung along for an looooooooooong time until we finally wrapped up the nomination in June.

During this time, McCain managed to pull an upset and win the Republican nomination and suddenly I was facing the reality of my dream campaign. Two genuine, positive candidates were facing each other and both promised an honorable campaign. This fall has been fascinating to watch the ebbs and flows of the election cycle. It has been far from a perfect campaign and there have definitely been some nasty moments, but I think it really hasn't been as nasty as people make it out to be (at least compared to the last 2 election cycles). Of course, it's been getting a lot nastier lately and probably will continue to be until the election (although don't blame both sides if just one side is being excessively negative). Honestly, my biggest disappointment has been the incredible focus the candidates have had toward the middle class during the general election, with very little emphasis on the lower class (But, it's the middle class who decides who wins the election. I just hope the benefits given to the middle class can trickle down to the lower classes as well). No matter who wins, I think we're going to end up with a decent President and hopefully the nation can come together and actually try to help people who really need help. I know the economy isn't looking good for the next few years, and the prospects for changes in health care, education, and environmental stewardship are looking very bleak with all our money tied up in the financial markets, but I'm still holding out some hope.

I know I'm an idealistic, optimistic, and yes, naive college student. But perhaps we can start to look for the best in ourselves and hope that our government can aid us in our pursuit to bring justice and help to the poor and oppressed. I meant to write this last week to encourage everyone to register to vote before the deadline, but my procrastination won out in the end. Instead I encourage everyone who is registered to vote to actually vote if they feel morally inclined. However, if you believe you should be separate and apart from government, then I totally understand and I may be there with you one day. I do ask everyone to pray. Not just for our nation, but for every nation that has God's children crying out for justice and relief. May God bless us all to be agents of hope in a dark world.

It's That Time of Year Again

2008-09-07T00:06:00.000-07:00

If the sports year was like a Catholic calendar, then September would be Advent and October would be Lent. This is one of my favorite parts of the year as the Baseball season heats up and the Football season gets started. After a quiet baseball summer, things are getting interesting. The Astros had an awful year until August (including some time in last place in the Central), but have suddenly caught FIRE in the past 5 weeks. They have one of the best records in the majors since August 1, and are actually clicking on all cylinders. Unfortunately, so have the Cubs (1st place in the division) and the Brewers (1st place in the wild card standings). As of tonight, the Astros stand 7 games back of the wild card with 20 games to go. So a playoff trip is very unlikely, but possible (which is much better than I would have predicted a month ago). If anything, we're just a game back of the 3rd place Cardinals, and it's always nice to finish ahead of them. Hopefully, we can finish strong, continue to rebuild in the off-season, get some more help in starting pitching and middle relievers, pick up another bat, and hopefully come back strong in '09. Until then, it's always fun to watch your favorite team play well, especially when Roy Oswalt pitches a 1 hitter like he did tonight. Way to go Roy!

Meanwhile, the Red Sox are finally getting healthy again with Lowell and Beckett back in the lineups (and making very impressive debuts). As of tonight, the Sox are in 1st place in the wild card standings and just 2.5 games behind the Rays in the East. With Beckett, Lester, Dice-K and a solid Wakefield in a playoff rotation, the Sox could make another run at the World Series. It should be an exciting October!

Also, another very exciting thing is happening in baseball right now............The Yankees ARE (probably) NOT GOING TO MAKE THE PLAYOFFS!!!!! For the first time in over 12 years, it appears the Yankees will not be playing in October. After firing one of baseball's best managers, spending $200 million on payroll, and putting a bunch of prissy celebrities together and calling it a "team," the Yankees now stand 8 games behind the wild-card. I'm so thrilled to not have to see a bunch of conceited New Yorkers gloat about their evil empire. Oh, by the way, Steinbrenner's, have fun this off-season moving away from baseball history and moving into a charmless and dull new stadium that's easier for New Jersey bandwagon fans to get to. I hate the Yankees, and it is so fun to kick them while they're down for a change.

In other news......do you hear that?.......there's a sound in downtown Nashville.......it's getting louder.........there's a mass of people on the walking bridge over the Cumberland River........what's that they're chanting?.......

LET'S GO TITANS!!! LET'S GO TITANS!!!! That's right! It's football time again! And I couldn't be more excited for kick-off tomorrow. The Titans begin their season at noon against their rival Jaguars. The Titans will be lead by Albert Haynesworth, Kyle Vanden-Bosch and a crushing defense. Meanwhile, Vince Young and the offense will seek to improve with the additions of Algie Crumpler at Tight End and blazing speedster Chris Johnson at running back. I still wish the Titans had done more to improve the receiver position, but I think Vince Young will be a lot better with Mike Heimerdinger back at Offensive coordinator and the Madden curse off his back. (Speaking of which, what happens when the relentless Madden curse faces off with an invincible quarterback who hasn't missed a start in approximately 5 zillion games? We'll find out this season with Brett Favre. This situation is just what the Joker described in The Dark Knight, when "an unstoppable force meets an immovable object." I've got my money on Batman, I mean, Favre.)

I think the Titans will be a better team this year, but that still may not be enough to reach the playoffs. The AFC is just so good this year, with at least 11 teams with legitimate shots at the 6 playoff spots. Plus the AFC South was ridiculously difficult last year (no teams under .500!) and will be even better this year. I'm not saying we won't make the playoffs, it will just be a tough ride. But it will be fun all the way and it's exciting to see a team that's on its way up.

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch........

TONY ROMO! TERRELL OWENS! JASON WITTEN! MARION BARBER! DEMARCUS WARE! BRADIE JAMES! TERRENCE NEWMAN!

Do you see all those amazing players? Those are just 7 of the 13 pro-bowlers from last year's 13-3 squad. Plus, add in the amazing Zach Thomas, the reformed Adam Jones, and the electrifying Felix Jones, and you've got a potentially better squad and a championship contender. However, after last year's heartbreaking playoff loss to the Giants, it is important to remember that despite last year's success and this year's expectations, we must take everything one game at a time and take no one for granted. We are in an incredibly tough division and we are going to be getting everyone's best shots this year. We must play focused football during the regular season if we want to return to the playoffs. If we get there, we have to play our game and fight hard to and win our first playoff game since 1996. Only then can we start thinking about winning a............you know what, I'm not even going to say it........we'll just say it rhymes with Cooper Mole. Until then, I'm going to enjoy every game with this fun team, and root for my Boys as we run and gun on offense and smash and gash on defense. After the depressing 2000-2005 years with 8,362 different quarterbacks, it's so nice to sit back and enjoy Romo and his gang ever Sunday. I love this team!

This is normally the space I would devote towards getting pumped up for our UT Vols, but I'm still scarred from last Monday's loss to UCLA. The hard thing about college football is that you can see all your title hopes destroyed in the first game of the season. Hopefully we can turn things around real quick in conference play, and everything would be perfect again if somehow we can pull off a monster upset on Florida in two weeks. But until then, I'm worried about our difficult schedule and our sketchy offense. Let's just move on........

I love the fall: checking all my teams' websites every day, getting pumped every weekend, getting swept up in the highs and lows of sports, and cheering along with my friends. So come on, let's grab some food from the Student Center and watch the games tomorrow! Woo hoo!

My Last First Day of School.......for now

2008-08-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

Today I began my final year at Harding University as my 17 years of schooling begin to come to an end. Or at least until I go to Grad School. I'm not feeling nostalgic yet, and I'm not ready to start talking about my "lasts" yet ("Oh, this is the last time I don't go to a Harding football game", "this is the last bad piece of pizza I'm having in the caf.") So far, everything has been going swell here in Searcy. It has been great seeing friends again, getting my dorm room set up (For the last time!!!!.......just kidding), and starting classes.

I don't know if I've ever been as excited for a semester of school since Freshman year. I wasn't sure about classes at first, but after the first day, I really like my schedule so far. Here's a brief overview:

11:00-Advanced Intro to New Testament-Stanglin

I was worried that this class was going to be really tough, but based on the syllabus, it doesn't look to bad. Our main reasearch paper is only 8-10 pages, instead of the 25 I was worried about Dr. Stanglin is really smart and it will be fun learning from him this semester.

12:00-Augmentation and Persuasion-Garner

Dr. Garner is a crazy, unpredictable, stream-of-consciousness teacher, and I love him for it. He cracks me up and we always have really interesting discussions in his classes. I'm really excited about this class as we study the ways people persuade and influence and how that affects society today. It should be very fun during an election year.

1:00-Patriarchs-Dr. Manor

This is a 400 level class, but it's with my boy Dr. Manor, who we dubbed our own "Mr. Pheeny." There's only 7 of us in this class, so we all just put our desks in a circle and discuss Genesis with Dr. Manor. It will be difficult and a lot of work, and we have a big paper, but it will also be a lot of fun.

2:00-Biblical Archaeology-Dr. Manor

This is the class I'm most excited about. In this class we get to drive out to Rosebud every Monday and go dig at a giant artificial tel that the honors college built, and perform the work like actual archaeologists would. I've heard from some people that this is the most fun class at Harding, and Dr. Manor promises we're going to have a lot of fun. I'm pretty pumped about it.

6:00-9:00 (Mondays only)-Seminar in African Missions-?

This class was supposed to be my only Tuesday/Thursday class, but apparently they moved it to a Monday night class. I just found this out today, and I have work tonight, so I wasn't able to go. So, we'll see how it goes. Since this got moved it means that I have to readjust my work schedule, fly back from Rosebud to get to class on time, and Mondays will be straight 10:00-9:00 class.

However, if I can get through Mondays, then that means I don't have any classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and my archaeology class doesn't meet on Fridays. So things should go pretty smooth the rest of the week. But Mondays may kill me.

I'm also really excited about my job this year. I'm working as a computer lab attendant in the GAC lab, and I'm really glad to actually have a good school job this semester. Also, we plan to hit the ground running with our work in the Woodruff St. neighborhood here in Searcy on Wednesday and get our Bible study rolling. All my friends are awesome here and I'm very excited about everything this semester.

Hopefully, Senior year will be my best year at Harding. It was difficult to leave everyone in Huntsville and it was also hard to leave Kingsport. I wasn't crazy excited about this year. But, God is a great God and he is always faithful and there is always a new and exciting event up ahead. I hope this year that God will be glorified in everything and I can share his blessings with those around me.

Summer of 2008

2008-06-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

I used to watch things like VH1 Behind the Music and hear them talk about how there was never a summer like the summer of 1968, or the summer of love or other shows that would mention the summer of (insert year). And I used to wonder what it would be like to refer to a summer in my own life as the summer of whatever and look back at with nostalgia.

In reality, looking back, God has blessed me with multiple summers that fit that description. The summer of '05 was a magical summer after I graduated, where I didn't have a job, but lived quite well on graduation money, and hung out with friends playing disc golf and video games till 4 in the morning every night. The summer of '04 had me going straight from the most impacting IMPACT of my life to Honors Symposium to our mission trip at LIFT. The summer of '06 was incredible with my first internship at Central COC. Last year was equally incredible.

This year, the summer of '08 is only halfway over, and it may already be the most phenomenal summer of my life. I have been so happy these past several weeks and God has blessed me with so much. I feel like I'm going to tell my grandkids about the summer of '08. Here I am, 21 years old and in the prime of life, in the exact place that God wants me to be this summer, and just getting a chance to soak everything in. Here are some things just off the top of my head in no particular order:

I am getting the chance to do some REAL REAL ministry here. God has blessed a lot of relationships here to allow for some deep discussion and his Spirit is really alive and active in this place.
IMPACT was amazing this year! We had 15 Junior High students decide to get baptized and the theme of "Day of Reckoning" really got us as a group to look at things with an eternal lens. It was such a blessing to go on that journey with our teens.
The weather has been beautiful this summer. Maybe global warming has just made me more used to heat, but the temperature has been very comfortable and almost every day as I go over the mountain from church to Hampton Cove I see beautiful sunsets, clouds, sky, trees. I don't know if I've just been in a very Emerson/Thoreau mood lately, but I am just in love with nature right now. The day I got back from Impact I went hiking for 4 hours on this awesome trail where I didn't see anyone the entire time. It was awesome!
The new Coldplay cd is amazing!!! Every song is awesome. You can tell that they just wanted to get very creative instrumentally and lyrically and try a bunch of new things. It reminds me of when the Beatles realized they were so good that they could just go crazy and wild and got creative with Sgt. Pepper's and The White Album.
The Boston Celtics just won the championship in a very fun season of the NBA, capped off by an old school Lakers/Celtics series. I used to always watch the old 80's Lakers Celtics series flashbacks on ESPN with Magic and Bird and always wish I could see one in my own lifetime. Plus I'm really glad that KG and Pierce finally got a championship.
My boy Obama is the nominee, and I'm getting to watch the beginnings of a great debate between McCain and him. I have a lot of respect for both candidates and it is so refreshing to see two solid and honest candidates have a real debate on the issues. I feel so excited and un-cynical about politics right now, and I just have so much hope for things. Of course, that could all go down the tube, but it's nice every once in a while to throw cynicism down and just believe and hope for a change.
Wall-E is probably my favorite movie of the summer so far! It was so smart and funny and had a lot of great messages (My favorite quote: "I'm tired of surviving. I want to live!"). Get Smart was ok and Price Caspian was pretty good. Everything else that I was excited about got bad reviews, but I can't wait for the Dark Knight!
I am getting to share this summer with 3 other fantastic interns, and 3 great Youth Ministers. It is so great to come to work each day with people you love and enjoy. I have laughed so much and had so much fun with Barrie, April and Heath. And they've been a great support and encouragement to me as well. They've helped me out so much and have even been a shoulder to cry on at times. I have idealistic hopes that this isn't the end of our ministry together. I could honestly see Heath and I doing mission work together or something crazy like that.
There have been some times when I've felt physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted, burdened, and poured out. But I have been continually filled and renewed by the Spirit. It has been great to continue my maturation and walk in Christ and feel the closeness I was hoping for last semester. I hope and pray that I can continue this closeness into the next school year.
This past Wednesday our theme was Broadcast Generosity and so this week we're getting our community and serving. One group is going under bridges and feeding the homeless, my group painted at a Rescue Mission, and others are doing a lot of other cool things. It's cool getting to see God working here in the same way I've seen him work in Searcy and elsewhere.
I just love my kids here! I feel like I have so many little brothers and sisters and I see God working in them so much.

Anyways, I'm tired and I've been rambling a lot this post. Basically, this has been a wonderful summer so far. I just want to write a song about it or something, but a blog post will have to do for now. Don't you just love summers?

Living World Religions Field Trip-Day Two

2008-04-18T21:46:00.000-07:00

Today was incredible, but exhausting. So I'm going to have to brief in my explanations of the day, so I can go to sleep, because we have another big day tomorrow.

We headed out for the Hindu Temple at 8:15 this morning. On the way I had one of my most profound religious moments of the trip when I saw Texas Stadium, home of my Dallas Cowboys, for the first time in my life. I almost cried it was so glorious, though a little ugly.

The Hindu Temple was fascinating. We looked at all their statues to Vishnu, Ganesh, and many other gods and watched an offering to one of the gods. Then we listened to some explanations of Hinduism from some of the members of the temple. One of my favorite quotes from them was, "Once you learn to treat every person like there is a part of God in each of them, then you really don't need much religion after that." We also examined many of their saints and enjoyed some conversation with them.

From there we headed to the mall's food court for lunch and then headed to a Zen meditation center. This turned out to be just a regular house that they happened to put a bunch of mats in the living room. There we learned about meditation and how to properly perform it. Then we practiced for about 7 minutes. The basic tenants of Zen are pretty cool. They teach about being in the moment and being conscious and aware of everything you do. They gave the example of how we wash the dishes so we can then put them up and then move on to another chore so that we can do something else, while all the while our mind is elsewhere. They said that under Zen you wash the dishes simply to wash the dishes and are in the moment and just thinking about washing the dishes. During meditation we were just supposed to be semi-focused on the wall and try to clear our mind. Our guide told us it was impossible just to force yourself to stop thinking, so she gave us the metaphor of us being a mountain and thoughts are just clouds passing by that mountain. We were just to realize that those thoughts would just pass us by and we didn't have to force them away. Our guide gave us the option of just counting to ten over and over in our heads or saying a spiritual word over and over (I just kept repeating "Jesus") It was a neat experience, though difficult for me because I have bad posture. After that we did walking meditation, which was basically the same thing except you are walking around, and trying to just focus on taking one step at a time. This was a lot easier for me to concentrate on and I really enjoyed it (although it did last a little long and we were just doing circles in the backyard).

Meditation is a spiritual discipline that we Christians tend to neglect, but is however a very important one. Although Foster's Celebration of Disciplines discusses how Christian meditation is different from eastern meditations that try to empty the mind, while we try to empty ourselves but fill ourselves with Christ. I also liked the aspect of Zen where you simply try to stay in the moment and devote yourself to the here and now. Paul says "we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5) and 'whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3:17).

From there we went to a Bhuddist Soka Gakkai center. There we listened to the recitation of their chants which was really cool. It was weird because the members were mostly white hippies, and their beliefs were a lot different from traditional Bhuddism. I liked that they were really into world peace and ending suffering around the world. But they were basically a self-help group that believed by chanting the phrase "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo" you could release the power within to reach a higher consciousness. The leader seemed to not have a lot of depth in his faith and kept saying we were asking "really tough questions" even though they weren't that tough. I was more interested in talking to the Japanese immigrants who were sitting behind us who were beautiful singers (chanters?) and really cool ladies.

Then we headed to a Sikh temple. We took off our shoes and sat down and listened to a long lecture on Sikhism, before enjoying some of the Sikh's hospitality and food. I love Indian type food, and this stuff was great (and full of curry....yum!). Then we listened to another lecture, but also got to listen to hymns and ceremonies and prayers to their holy book. Coleman even got to fan the book, which was hilarious. Then we watched as they put the book to bed and tucked it in as they said, "Goodnight teacher, we will see what you have to teach us tomorrow." Then the Sikh's served us even more dinner and we got to talk and meet a lot of cool people at the temple, who were super nice (definitely my favorite people of the day).

We then went back to the hotel and had some great worship time to God, and had some time to process everything we had seen today.

So yeah, I'm exhausted and a little overwhelmed with everything I've seen today. I need some more time before I can actually process everything I've seen. But, I'm going to bed for now. God bless!

Living World Religions Field Trip-Day 1

2008-04-17T21:53:00.000-07:00

I'm currently sitting in a hotel here in Dallas, Texas on our Living World Religions field trip. Being on a charter bus turned a 6 hour drive into a 7 1/2 hour drive, but it was all good. Today is just a get there day and then we start our religion-ing tomorrow. We're going to a Hindu, Sokko Gakkai (a form of Bhuddism) temple, a Zen Temple, and a Siek temple tomorrow. It should be lots of fun.

I'll try to keep you all updated. I'm exhausted tonight, and there's not really anything left to write about. Lata.

I'm A Sell Out.....

2008-04-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

So, I guess I didn't get the memo that the writer's strike was over. I looked and I saw that I had only one post in the month of March.......lame.....I'll try to do better in April. It's been a crazy month with tons of stuff going on, papers, tests, midterms, sermons, and just not really in the mood to write any more than I had to for school. Oh well. Anyways, on to the real post.

So, I was filling out my Bible scholarship yesterday and the blank came up for Religion. For these things I usually just put "Christian." I say that on facebook or when people ask me at jail or anywhere else. I've always attended a Church of Christ, but that's not my religion and I don't really have any allegiance to that denomination. My religion and allegiance are to Jesus and that's all. In fact, a few of us are thinking about visiting the Episcopal church in our neighborhood we've been working with, because a lot of the people that we've met there attend it and it's more involved in that community.

However, I've heard rumors around that we don't give as much out in scholarship money for people who don't put "Church of Christ" in the religion blank. I'm pretty sure this is not true and is just a rumor.....but I did not want to take that chance. So, after thinking about it for 5 seconds I slapped the "Church of Christ" tag on there and turned the form in.

I guess I could just say that I meant Church of Christ in the broad universal sense of the Church of Jesus Christ throughout the past 2000 years.......but I didn't. I wanted to make sure I got every dollar I could possibly get and so I sold myself out. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of a lot of aspects of my Church of Christ heritage, and I imagine the Church of Christ will be an important part of my future. But, I'm more proud of my savior Jesus Christ and want to be known only as a follower of Christ, not a follower of any particular denomination (although it may claim to be non-denominational).

So I feel a little guilty today. I know I'm being pretty dramatic about this, and it isn't really that big of a deal. I know I didn't really "sell out" my religion or back down to the "man" or anything. I just feel that I wasn't totally honest with where the center of my life and religion is. I just hope that next time someone asks me my religion I can faithfully say, "I follow Jesus Christ" and that's it.

Bracketology

2008-03-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time of year again. Let me get into my inner Dick Vitale for this:

IT'S MARCH MADNESS BABY!!!!

For the next 3 weeks, I will get to watch one of my favorite annual sports events. This year is even more fun with UT actually having a legitimate shot at the title. But one of my favorite parts of march madness has been going on all week. That's right....filling out my bracket. For years, this has been one of my favorite things to do.

Here's the catch: I'm terrible at it! I have never won a bracket competition, I usually get beat by a girl, and often I am toward the bottom of my groups. That's the thing....you do research, look at bracket trends (there's always at least one #12-#5 upset) and check what the experts say, and then you get beat by the girl who just picks the highest seed for every game. The whole thing is a total crapshoot. Last year I went upset-heavy in my bracket and the bigger seeds dominated. The year before that I had less upsets, and teams like George Mason rocked the house. Plus, even the biggest NCAA fans can't know everything there is to know about the 65 teams in the tournament. I didn't even know San Diego had a basketball team, but I know that I'm picking them to upset UConn. That's the thing about this game.....you just never know.

This year was very difficult to pick, with no clear dominant team. Plus, I have biases still working against me. I have to pick UT to go all the way, there's no way around it. If I picked against them and they won, I would never forgive myself. Last year I picked Kansas to go all the way, and they got beat early and destroyed my bracket. But, this year they have a good team again, and I don't know if I should just forget about last year or make sure I don't get caught by the same trap again. (I've switched my pick on the Kansas/Clemson sweet 16 game 4 times now).

So, here was my strategy for this year: I did more research than ever, I checked out who's entering the tournament with momentum and who slipped their way in (Andy Katz's hot/not list), checked experts from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and CBS, looked at each matchup carefully, tried to avoid cute upsets, avoided biases except for UT, had a very good reason for picking upsets supported by other experts, and tried to pick safe teams for going into later rounds (no 7 seeds in the final four this year).

So my final four: UT, Georgetown, UCLA, Texas
Championship: UT over UCLA

Big Upsets: George Mason over Notre Dame, St. Joeseph's over Oklahoma, Davidson over Gonzaga, USC over Wisconsin (Round 2), Arizona over West Virginia, San Diego over UConn,

(I toyed with Pitt over Memphis in the Sweet 16. Should I go for it? I don't know. I still have till 11:00 tomorrow to change it up).

Well, there you go. I probably wouldn't listen to me, because like I said, I'm going to lose. But, I'll be watching as much as I can. (*Dick Vitale voice*: It's March Madness baby! You gotta love it!)

Back to the Port of Kings

2008-02-27T21:58:00.000-08:00

Hey guys! I just wanted to let everyone know that I am coming back home to Kingsport in two days! I'm really excited since this will be my first college spring break spent at home (no Florida or Nicaragua this time). Some things I'm looking forward to:

Our booth at Waffle House! If I'm there at the middle booth by the window, then I know there is much merriment going on. Plus I miss my K-town waitresses. The Searcy waitresses are always so grumpy.
Frisbee golf! I'm ready to get back in the game!
Relaxing at home with the Mom and eating good home cooking and sleeping late and just having an awesome time.
Seeing my gang again and having lots of laughter and fun
That sweet Eastman air!
Renewing the ping pong rivalry between Wes and me. 84-82 baby!
A million other little things that just make home so great!

Can't wait till Friday! Love yall! God bless!

The Sports Desert of February

2008-02-23T23:22:00.000-08:00

A lot of people I know say that February is the worst month of the year. They say it's cold, monotonous, and has a lack of any excitement. I have a dislike of February for a different reason:

There are no sports in February!!

Football ends in late January/early February and I'm usually a bit grumpy at how my teams did in the playoffs, if indeed they made the playoffs (this year was no exception). Baseball is still 6 weeks away. The NBA doesn't matter till June. And college basketball usually doesn't get exciting till late February/early March. I haven't even watched Around the Horn/PTI when I get the chance, because there's nothing really interesting to hear about except depressing steroid stories or coaching changes.

I usually have to fill this time just by looking at the Astros or Red Sox rosters and waiting for spring. This year I've made politics my sporting event and have treated the primaries like an NFL season (which probably isn't a good comparison.....since politics actually affects people's lives). But today, my sports famine of February finally found some food.

This afternoon I got to go to the Harding-Henderson State basketball game. HSU is our biggest rivals and the game was nationally televised on CSS. We had to get tickets beforehand, and it was sold out and totally packed. The crowd was on fire and I felt like I had gotten out of a rock concert when I left (even Dr. Burks painted up). We totally dominated the game in the second half and ended up winning by 17. There really is just no comparison to the Rhodes Rowdies here at Harding. Every game you go to is an event, and you never know how pumped up the crowd is going to get.

The next awesome thing to make this a doubly-fantastic sports day was the match-up between #1 Memphis and #2 Tennessee. I can't remember UT basketball ever having a team that was near as good as this one (men's basketball that is), or there ever being a bigger regular season game than this one. The game did not disappoint as it went back and forth and came down to the wire. But in the end, thanks to a Tyler Smith turnaround J, UT came out the victor and can now claim the #1 spot in the country. I can't believe I'm saying that! UT is #1 in the country! Way to go Rocky Top!

I can't say how much I love this team. Last year's team was carried by my boy Chris Lofton. This year there are so many playmakers, we don't need to be carried by any one player. At any time Jajuan Smith, Tyler Smith, Ramar Smith, J.P. Prince, Wayne Chism, Lofton, and a great bench can come alive and dominate. We have great team chemistry, fantastic defense, decent rebounding, great outside shooting, and great dribbling penetration. Like I said.....I love this team!

So, for the next several weeks I will be fully immersed in college basketball. Sports are back. The famine is over. Thank goodness....February was getting rough.

Harding Recruitment Video-1988

2008-02-18T13:51:00.001-08:00

I saw this on Dr. Elrod's blog, but I just had to put it on here. Below are some clips from the Harding recruitment video from 1988.

Some highlights include:

An introduction from then Governor Bill Clinton
Narration by Jeff Walling (who is currently banned from speaking at Harding)
The awesome 80's clothes/hair
The "high tech" computers in what then was called the Beaumont Library
Jimmy Allen looked exactly the same 20 years ago as he does now
The student center looked awesome back then! Bowling, pool, ping pong and arcade games. Now all we have is the stupid pit. I should have come here in the 80's.
Trying to recruit students by showing it all snowy at Harding. I think we've had real snow twice since I've been here. But 1988 must have been before global warming.
We had only 5 departments back then compared to.....I don't know.....a bunch now.
The awesome old video games
The old nursing outfits
Spring Sing looks exactly the same.....some things never change

You can also watch part 2 and part 3

Okay, so maybe I really do like possessions

2008-02-18T00:18:00.000-08:00

I've been talking with my friends a lot about simplicity and being minimalistic. I would like to think that I am not tied down to my stuff and that I could give it all up just like that and move to South America. An event that happened tonight made me realize that maybe I'm not as simplistic as I like to profess.

I was putting some clothes in a dryer tonight at the guys' laundromat and started it and realized that I had picked one of the broken dryers in the laundromat (which apparently 75% of our dryers are now duds......seriously, I'm paying 17 grand a year for this?!?). I was out of quarters so I went back to my room and then ended up going to the student center with my friend Amy. We hung out till almost curfew and when I went back to the laundromat, I looked and my favorite pair of jeans were gone!

Now, you might ask why I would get upset about one pair of jeans. Well, my mom got me these jeans last fall and they're my favorite pair and I wear them ALL THE TIME, because I'm single, I'm a guy, and all my clothes match up well with them. Still, even with that, it shouldn't be a big deal. But, about a month ago, I stupidly left my car door unlocked and someone stole my ipod that my sister had given to me for high school graduation, and my itrip that had allowed me to rock out to any music that I wanted in my car (I said that this happened because God was just trying to get me to rely on possessions less.....but really it's just because I'm just an idiot). Then Coleman got me a Waffle House gift card for my birthday, but every time I try to use it they say it's messed up and I end up having to pay with what's left of my money while the waitresses and my friends look at me like I'm an idiot for wasting so much time trying to use the stupid gift card. So, with the stolen ipod, the lies of waffle house, and now my stolen jeans, I walked back to my dorm room with my naive self dead, losing all faith in humanity, and thinking the world was out to get me. I realized that I really just wanted my stuff back and I was angry that it was all gone.

Of course, when I came back into my room, I realized that I had forgotten my jeans in the room.....so maybe humanity was still okay after all.

But I realized that for all my talk about not being attached to possessions and the treasures of this earth....I still unfortunately am quite attached deep down. I like my stuff. My stuff makes my life better and easier. My stuff is cool. Stuff is good.

And it's not just the stuff. It's the sentimentality attached to the stuff. Like I said, my sister got me that ipod as a graduation present and I have been rocking out to it since senior year. Almost all my things are gifts from someone and have a story. So, it's really difficult to not be attached to them.

I know this is only going to get harder. As I get a real career and disposable income and responsibilities it's going to get harder and harder to keep things simple and to not get too attached to stuff. I pray that God will help me as I continue to grow and try to store treasures in heaven instead of on earth. I pray that I can learn to be okay if possessions are lost, and maybe I can do the intentional loosing. I pray that I can figure out how to be as simple as I want to be. And I pray that God will give me grace while I'm not quite yet there (or actually while I still have a long long way to go). May we all be a people who realize that the stuff of this world isn't what matters, and may we all find our joy in what truly does matter.

Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T20:32:00.000-08:00

I did a little research on the origins of Valentine's Day so I could look smart today. The research seems a little murky and I got conflicting reports. Apparently there is evidence of three St. Valentine's . Most believe that the one Valentine's day is referring to was St. Valentine of Rome who was martyred on February 14 in the third century A.D. There is a legend that the Emperor Claudius had outlawed marriage for a time, because he thought single soldiers were better soldiers, but St. Valentine continued to perform marriages in secret, and was thus executed. This is what makes him the patron saint of love.

There is also evidence that February 15 was a pagan holiday in which teenage boys ran through the streets and threw meat from a goat they had sacrificed at women (the women accepted this because they thought it made them more likely to have a baby). Some argue the Catholic church had to nix this and thus made February 14 Valentine's Day.

Then some argue that February 14 is the traditional day that birds start mating in England, but some refute this because they say birds don't mate in England this early in the year.

So, we don't really know where Valentine's Day exactly came from. All we know is that Hallmark and chocolate companies were able to cash in on this baby big time. I always enjoy Valentine's day here at Harding. I get cards and candy in my mailbox from friends, have a good time hanging out, and I get to watch what I like to call the "angry singles." There's two types. The first are always fun because they like to change the name of the holiday to "Singles awareness day," they get really cynical, and they make fun of people in relationships and just act all bitter because they're single. The second type gets all belligerent are say things like, "I don't need no man!" (notice I say "man" because guys are rarely this second type) and talk about how they're too hot for guys. It's lots of fun and there should definitely be anthropological studies done on this stuff.

I myself had a fantastic Valentine's Day. I rocked out a Seminar in Missions test, had fun at work, went with our group to the nursing home in our neighborhood and passed out Valentine cards to old people, got some Chinese with Coleman, watched some Lost, called some people back home, and hung out with some friends for the rest of the night. All in all, a great day. I like to consider myself one of the "chill singles," people who just have a good time and try not to worry about stuff. I'm having a great semester and I'm loving all my friends and loving every minute. Plus tomorrow is February 15th so I get to sacrifice a goat and throw it at girls!.....just kidding, I'm not a teenager anymore so I can't do that. I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day and there was much love and awesomeness all around. God bless!

A Glance At Our Islamic Friends

2008-02-11T21:44:00.000-08:00

Today in Living World Religions with Dr. Cox we began our study of Islam, a subject that we have also briefly discussed in my Seminar in Missions class. I found it ironic that I was finishing studying for our quiz by reading about Islam in Harding University Chapel today. There's a lot of interesting things about Islam. Of course, my Bible major self finds the most interesting things is when Islamic beliefs over-lap some biblical truths.

One of the coolest things about Islam is that they have 99 names for God. Here's the list so you can take a brief glance at it:

1. Allah
2. The Compassionate (al-Rahman)
3. The Merciful (al-Rahim)
4. The King/Sovereign (al-Malik)
5. The Holy (al-Quddus)
6. The Source of Peace (al-Salam)
7. The Giver of Faith (al-Mu'min)
8. The Overall Protector (al-Muhaimin)
9. The Strong (al-`Aziz)
10. The Almighty (al-Jabbar)
11. The Majestic (al-Mutakabbir)
12. The Creator (al-Khaliq)
13. The Maker (al-Bari')
14. The Fashioner (al-Musawwir)
15. The Great Forgiver (al-Ghaffar)
16. The Dominant (al-Qahhar)
17. The Bestower (al-Wahhab)
18. The Provider (al-Razzaq)
19. The Opener, The Reliever (al-Fattah)
20. The All-Knowing (al-`Alim)
21. The Restrainer, The Withholder (al-Qabid)
22. The Extender (al-Basit)
23. The Humbler (al-Khafid)
24. The Exalter (al-Rafi`)
25. The Empowerer (al-Mu`izz)
26. The Humiliator (al-Mudhill)
27. The All-Hearing, The Hearer (al-Sami`)
28. The All-Seeing (al-Basir)
29. The Judge (al-Hakam)
30. The Just (al-`Adl)
31. The Kindly One (al-Latif)
32. The Gracious, The Aware (al-Khabir)
33. The Clement, The Forbearing (al-Halim)
34. The Mighty (al-`Azim)
35. The Forgiving (al-Ghafur)
36. The Grateful, The Appreciative (al-Shakur)
37. The High, The Sublime (al-`Aliyy)
38. The Great (al-Kabir)
39. The Preserver (al-Hafiz)
40. The Protector, The Guardian, The Feeder, The Sustainer (al-Muqit)
41. The Reckoner (al-Hasib)
42. The Sublime One (al-Jali)
43. The Bountiful, The Gracious (al-Karim)
44. The Watcher, The Watchful (al-Raqib)
45. The Responsive, The Hearkener (al-Mujib)
46. The Infinite, The All-Embracing (al-Wasi`)
47. The Wise (al-Hakim al-Mutlaq)
48. The Loving (al-Wadud)
49. The Glorious (al-Majid)
50. The Resurrector (al-Ba`ith)
51. The Witness (al-Shahid)
52. The True (al-Haqq)
53. The Advocate (al-Wakil)
54. The Most Strong (al-Qawiyy)
55. The Firm (al-Matin)
56. The Patron (al-Waliyy)
57. The Praiseworthy (al-Hamid)
58. The Numberer (al-Muhsi)
59. The Commencer (al-Mubdi)
60. The Restorer (al-Mu`id)
61. The Giver of Life (al-Muhyi)
62. The One Who Gives Death (al-Mumit)
63. The Living One (al-Hayy)
64. The Self-Subsisting (al-Qayyum)
65. The Perceiver (al-Wajid)
66. The One (al-Wahid)
67. The Independent (al-Samad)
68. The Powerful (al-Qadir)
69. The Dominant (al-Muqtadir)
70. The Giver (al-Muqaddim)
71. The Retarder (al-Mu'akhkhir)
72. The First (al-Awwal)
73. The Last (al-Akhir)
74. The Manifest (al-Zahir)
75. The Hidden (al-Batin)
76. The Governor (al-Wali)
77. The High Exalted (al-Muta`ali)
78. The Righteous (al-Barr)
79. The Relenting (al-Tawwab)
80. The Forgiver (al-`Afuww)
81. The Avenger (al-Muntaquim)
82. The Compassionate (al-Ra'uf)
83. The Ruler of the Kingdom (Malik al-Mulk)
84. The Lord of Majesty and Bounty (Dhu'l-Jalal wa'l-Ikram)
85. The Equitable (al-Muqsit)
86. The Gatherer, The Collector (al-Jami`)
87. The Self-Sufficient (al-Ghani)
88. The Enricher (al-Mughni)
89. The Bestower (al-Mu`ti)
90. The Withholder (al-Mani`)
91. The Propitious (al-Nafi`)
92. The Distresser (al-Darr)
93. The Light (al-Nur)
94. The Guide (al-Hadi)
95. The Eternal (al-Azali)
96. The Everlasting (al-Baqi)
97. The Heir (al-Warith)
98. The Guide to the Right Path (al-Rashid)
99. The Patient (al-Sabur)

It's interesting because most seem to be similar descriptions that we Christians give God (with an exception of #71....."the Retarder"?). Descriptions such as "The Mighty" "The Forgiving" "The Compassionate" all fit Christianity's view of who God is. There are some good precepts in Islam such as an emphasis on helping the poor and a strong devotion to God. Another interesting thing is the prayer called the Al-Fatihah that Muslims repeat at least 17 times a day. It goes,

"In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Master of the Day of Judgement. You alone we worship. You alone we ask for help. Show us the straight path, the path of those whom you have favored; not the path of those who earn your anger nor of those who go astray."

I mention all these things to just show some similarities between Islam and the True Way. I certainly do not say them to advocate Islam, nor to argue an inclusivist view of salvation. I just wanted to show what I've been learning.

An interesting topic we briefly discussed in Seminar in Missions is how many Islamic rituals should Muslim converts to Christianity be able to keep. We talked about how they should certainly still be able to call God "Allah," since the word used for God in the Greek, Theos, is just the word Greeks used for any deity. Some argue that Muslim converts should still be able to call themselves "Muslims" since the word Muslim means "servant of God." Another question is whether Muslim converts are allowed go to mosque as long as they do not pray anything outside of Christian principles. Some argue against these allowances because it dangers on pluralism. Others counter that argument by saying that Paul became like a Jew to win Jews and like a Greek to win Greeks. All of these are difficult questions, and I do not have the answers (at least not yet), but they are interesting concepts to consider.

I think it is very important that we learn all we can about the world around us and the beliefs of others, so that we can better communicate the love of Christ to them. I'm really excited about all I'm learning this semester and I hope it will make me a better minister of reconciliation. God bless us all as we work together in this ministry.

The Mindless Menace of Violence

2008-02-10T12:26:00.000-08:00

The following is from the speech "On the Mindlss Menace of Violence" by Robert Kenndey on April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and two months before his own assassination:

This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason [....]

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter [...]

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence [...]

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

***

A group of my friends and I listened to these words as we watched the 2006 movie Bobby, We could not help but notice the parallels between the events portrayed in 1968 and our time in 2008. The nation was at war, hatred filled the streets, and there was a great longing for peace. I struggle many times with the ideas of non-violence and how to make it work on a macro level in these complex times. I do not presume to know the answers and I do not wish to tell smarter people what to do. The only thing I do know is that this world of violence is not what God envisioned for all his children. I know that my sister has traveled the countries of Vietnam and Cambodia and seen the devastation caused by the actions of America and I wonder if those same mistakes are being repeated again. I hear those who believe that violence can create peace and I wonder what Christ would tell them when he preached to his generation “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27).

And yet, we think of peace on a world-wide level and we cannot even keep peace in our own churches or in our own communities or in our own families. How can I preach peace when I still harbor anger and rage in my own heart and mind? We truly live in a broken world full of hatred and despair. But Christ calls out to us amid this fallen world and offers us a peace that surpasses all understanding. Can that peace move us to transform our own hearts, our own families, our own communities, our own churches, and perhaps even the whole world? As Iraqis, Americans, Israelis, Palestinians, Sudanians, gang members in L.A., the poor in our own streets and many many others die every day, can there ever be an end to the “mindless menace of violence” that Bobby Kennedy spoke of?

I truly believe that we can remake this world. I believe we can live the dreams of Dr. King, work as brothers as Bobby Kennedy once hoped, and be servants of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. For our God gives us peace in this world full of violence. I think it is best said as God speaks to mankind in Isaiah 57:18-19,

“I have seen his ways, but I will heal him;
I will guide him and restore comfort to him,

creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel.
Peace, peace, to those far and near,"
says the LORD. "And I will heal them."

Amen. May his peace come to those far and near.

Me as an M&M

2008-02-08T19:00:00.000-08:00

I thought this was fun. You can make one of yourself at http://www.becomeanmm.com/
What color will you be?

Spring Semester So Far

2008-01-30T23:40:00.001-08:00

I figured I'd give a quick rundown of my schedule and what all is going on this semester so far.

10:00-MWF-Living World Religions- Dr. Cox

This is one of the hardest classes to get into at Harding. It has the famous former missionary Monte Cox, fun and interesting class, and there's a field trip to Dallas towards the end of the semester to visit worship ceremonies of different religions. I was able to slide into the class at the last second. It's been really good so far. We've had a general overview and now we're discussing Judaism (which I find fascinating). We have a lot of good discussion and there's a lot of fun people in the class, so I'm really excited.

11:00-MWF-Intro to Preaching-Dr. Thompson

I finally get to do some preachin'! I've really liked this class so far. Dr. Thompson is really cool and he's lots of fun. He does a good job of letting every person use their own voice and use the tools God gave them, and doesn't impose his voice and preferences on everyone. We've been giving introductory devos every day, and it's really cool watching the different styles of everyone. I've got a good one warming up for my devo coming up on Feb 6. I do have to do a 16 page exegesis paper for it, so I may be changing my mood of this later.

1:00-MWF-Missionary Principles and Practices-Dr. Dials

This class is a little boring, but it's had some good discussion so far. It's been easy at least. So, we'll see. It should be helpful in case I ever decide to pursue mission work.

1:00-TT-Western Civilization till 1577-Dr. Julie Harris

This is a class I didn't know I had to take, so now I'm taking my last gen ed here late in my Junior year. The good news is that I LOVE history, and it's nice to have a history class back in my life again. Plus Julie Harris is awesome and the class is easy, so it should be lots of fun.

2:30-TT-Seminar in Missions-Dr. Cox

This is another Monte class, and this one is really really awesome. It has a lot of hard core mission majors and it's a 400 level class, so it's really in depth and finds a way to handle both abstract and practical concepts. Monte gives some good lecture but this is probably the most insightful class discussion I've ever been a part of. It makes the discussion in my Missionary principles and practices class seem like freshman type stuff. I think this class will really be useful to me for whatever type of ministry I get into and it is my favorite class this semester.

Now for the fun part......My job!

I'm the Greek II SI (Supplemental Instruction) Leader, which basically means I'm a group tutor for Greek. This is nice because I definitely need a job, it's a good way to keep up with my Greek, and it's sort of fun. I have to go to the Greek class every day, which is tough because it adds to my already busy schedule, but I get paid to go, so that's cool. Plus, Master Bury is a really good teacher and it's cool to watch the way he presents the information. Then I have 3 SI sessions every week and one training session a week. So I get paid 11-12 hours a week, which you know.....it pays the bills.

So yeah, I'm pretty busy this semester (especially compared to last semester). I'm usually going going going from 9-5 with few breaks in between every day. As far as extra-curricular projects go, on Sundays we go to church with our West Pleasure COC friends and do community projects in the afternoons. On Tuesdays Coleman and I do Jail Ministry. Wednesdays I work with our bible study/planning community, and then I'm doing various projects in between. I've been busy on the weekends so far with work, two steppin', Foo Fighters concert, and the official Arkansas headquarters Obama South Carolina watch party in Little Rock so far (awesome weekends!)

So, I'm busy, but good busy. I'm having tons and tons of fun, lots of new friends, stronger relationships with old friends, lots of laughter, and I'm getting to do a little bit of ministry. This could be my best semester ever here at Harding if things keep up. God has blessed me a lot and things couldn't be better.

Anyways....here's some pictures from the semester so far:

Our group after two-steppin' by the mountain. I can also do the 10 step and the Texas Waltz now. Thanks Lilly!

Foo Fighter concert. Rock on! Stein Auf!

Beale Street in Memphis after the concert.

Eating at Super China Buffet for my birthday! A Harding birthday tradition dating back to freshman year. I love their Sesame Chicken!

"The Family" hanging out.

Coleman and I at the Obama party. Thus the "O." It was a lot of fun and I felt like I was in an episode of the West Wing when we watched his victory speech and the supporters at the party with us we're cheering and chanting along with the people on tv.

The fellas

Me and Jimmy's 4 year old son Conner having fun after Bible Study tonight.

So yeah, as you can see, very fun times. I just hope it keeps on rockin!

21

2008-01-28T22:15:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posting. I've been getting used to my crazy schedule here at Harding, and really just haven't had a whole lot of free time.

Well, today (actually yesterday as of 20 minutes ago) I turned 21. It was a great little birthday. We've really got a great group here now, (which we affectionately call "The Family") and we've been having lots of fun. Laura got me tickets to the Foo Fighters concert last Friday and it was incredibly rockin and lots of fun. Today we went out for Chinese food, played some Balderdash, snuck around the new Pharmacy building that's under construction, played with the Microfilm in the library and looked at the New York Times on the day I was born (big day.....Gorbachaev was reforming his country, Regan just had the State of the Union, Challenger explosion anniversary, and Phil Simms and the Giants had just won the Super Bowl......hmmm......), and then we all sat in a hippy circle in Harding park and laughed a lot. It was just a great day and I am so blessed to have such great people around to celebrate with. And don't worry......there was no drinking involved on my 21st. I had a sinus cold, but that was the closest I came from not being fully myself.

God blessed me so much during my twentieth year. I feel like I've grown a lot, done some good work, had a lot of fun and laughter, grown in my friendships, made many many new friends, and am on my way to becoming the man God wants me to be. I only hope and pray that my twenty-first year could be just as good, and that I can continue to grow in ways that I couldn't even possibly imagine.

Thank you to everyone who sent me facebook messages, text messages, and even old fashioned face to face birthday wishes. You all mean so much to me and I love you all a lot. God bless!

Hope Is A Good Thing

2008-01-05T01:23:00.000-08:00

"For many months, we've been teased, even derided for talking about hope. But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the tasks ahead or roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it."

-Senator Barack Obama (victory speech at the Iowa Caucus)

I wanted to post this quote not for political reasons, but because it is a beautiful statement on the aspect of hope. It shows how hope is not something that you sit around and wait for. It is not passive, but an active element in our lives if we truly wish to follow our hopes. It is not sitting idly by and saying, "I hope that one day these terrible things will change." It is following your hopes in order to change the world.

As Christians, we sometimes get get stuck in a rut of hope. We hope for heaven and we hope for the day when we don't have to worry about the fallen and broken nature of this world. And while that is true, we must also have hope that God wishes to establish his kingdom here and have the hope that he can use us as his instruments in order to bring about love, joy, and peace in this dark world. We do not simply sit around and lazily hope, but we must use that hope to spur us on to do amazing things for God. We act because we hope and we hope because we act.

In The Shawshank Redemption Andy Dufrense, after escaping form prison, writes a letter to his friend Red and says, "Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." As Christians, we have the greatest hope ever. And we cannot ever let that hope die. Instead we must bring hope to a hopeless world and let our hope shine out of us every second of every day.

The writer of Hebrews puts it beautifully when he says in 10:23-24:

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds."

May we be a people who hold unswervingly to our hopes and may we live them out every single day.

I'm Back

2008-01-04T00:38:00.001-08:00

It's been a long time since I actually posted a blog on here. My bad. I have this thing where if I don't blog for a while then I feel like my first post back should be really awesome and then I don't ever feel like putting in the effort to making an awesome post and then it just goes longer before I blog and it just becomes this vicious exponential cycle.

So, I figured I just need to start getting back into the swing of writing again. So I'll just give some quick little tidbits from my life real quick and then hopefully I can start writing substantial things here soon.

It's been a fantastic Christmas break. My sleep schedule is completely messed up. I don't get in from hanging with the guys usually until somewhere in between 3-6 a.m. We hang out, act stupid, have great talks, flirt with waitresses at Waffle House, play games, and laugh and laugh and laugh. I sleep late, watch some Lost or How I Met Your Mother (I got both for Christmas), eat dinner and hang out with Mom, and then start hanging with the guys again. This is another reason that I haven't been blogging, because I've been too busy. It's been incredible. I've had so much fun and laughed more than ever before.
Christmas was nice. Mom and I had a nice quiet little Christmas. We watched some movies and of course It's a Wonderful Life (a Pyeatt family tradition), made some brownies, called Laura and Lucy on Christmas day, and had a nice time. We were both kind of sad that the girls were around the world for Christmas (We dealt with it in different ways. I sort of forgot Christmas was coming until it was suddenly right on me and Mom called me from work the week before and said, "What if we just went to the beach for Christmas?"), but we made it through and had a good solid Chistmas '07.
The Titans and the Cowboys made the playoffs! I'll have to have a bigger post on this here soon, but I'm super stoked for the upcoming playoffs. It's been a really fun regular season and it's been a lot of fun to see my guys win some big games to clinch the playoffs.
I've got mixed feelings about going back to school. I'm excited about a lot of things, but I've enjoyed being home so much that I don't really want to leave. I'll just have to enjoy this last week at home as much as possible and then all the good things that Searcy has to offer as well. It should be a great semester (if I can ever register for classes!) and there should be a lot of cool things about it.
My boy Barack Obama won the Iowa Causus tonight! We'll see how this will affect the overall campaign, but it should be interesting. Hopefully this will get our Bisons for Obama group actually moving when we come back to school. And I get to vote in my first primary! Should I register in Tennessee or Arkansas? Hmmm....
I've watched a lot of great movies lately. Charlie Wilson's War, Walk Hard, National Treasure 2, Sweeny Todd, I Am Legend, American History X, all of which were fantastic. But my favorite was a little independent movie called Once that Mom rented. It's a great movie about a musician who gets some help from a girl to record some songs and get his music career started. It's brilliant.

Well, that's all I've got so far. I'll try to post here soon. God bless!

4:08 In The Morning-I'm Finally Done!

2007-12-14T02:08:00.000-08:00

This is almost like a continuing series. Except, I'm officially done with all of my work for this semester now. I had my final Greek final today and I did pretty well. So, I am officially done with my Greek career as a student. It's weird knowing that I'll probably never be any more knowledgeable in Greek for the rest of my life than I am on this exact day. It's weird when you know the exact time when you're peaking at something. Then tonight, hyping up on Dr. Enuff this time, I had to knock out an 11 page Christian Education project. This one was a pretty big doozy, but I just got it done. So, now it is finished, finito, teleos (Greek for complete). I'm done with this semester. I don't have any finals tomorrow, so it's possible that I could sleep till dinner tomorrow. I'm spent.

Anyways, I'll be home late Saturday night. Woo hoo! Christmas break!

3:45 in the morning

2007-12-10T01:44:00.000-08:00

The title of this post is the current time I am writing this. I just knocked out another 9 page paper that I started writing at 12:30. I'm totally hyped up on coffee and speed writing right now, so it may be a little while before I get to sleep. I'll have to give you a post on Shaine Claiborne coming this weekend, but that will have to wait until I'm a little more coherent.

I wrote this paper on the Nature of Reality for my Honors class. I think it ended up being pretty good. I had to talk about objective/subjective perception, the construction of reality through mechanics of the brain, the macro cosmological universe, quantum mechanics, and string theory, aka Theory of Everything. I know that all sounds pretty boring, but I got to finish the paper off by talking about how the true nature of reality will be revealed in heaven. I talked about how reality on this earth is just a shadow of the "real" reality in heaven. I used this quote from C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle in which he describes heaven metaphorically by comparing the New Narnia and the Old Narnia:

"Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among the mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the glass there may have been a looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked like it meant more. I can't describe it any better than that: if you ever get there you will know what I mean. It was the unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried: "I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here.

I love that quote and it excites me for when we will see reality for what it truly is. With that, I'm going to get some sleep so I can get up for my Adolescent Education final tomorrow. I leave you with the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:12

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

A New Commitment

2007-12-03T13:12:00.000-08:00

I was sitting around last night contemplating whether or not I should go to the singing service at Downtown COC, while I was switching between Family Guy and A Beautiful Mind on TNT. I was pretty sure I was just going to skip it, when all of the sudden at 8:25 (the service was at 8:30), I had a sudden, urgent feeling that it was really important that I go. So I grabbed my keys and before I even realized it, I was running down the stairs and sprinting to my car. Suddenly I realized that there this wasn't just coming from me, and that maybe God had an important reason for me going to Downtown that night.

Now, I have to explain something. I am a total and complete hopeless romantic. I am one of the few guys that can stand sitting through some romantic chick flicks and I can tend to even really love them. So, in my silly little romantic mind I was thinking that maybe I was supposed to meet some girl at Downtown that night and something magical would happen and we would fall in love or something ridiculous like that. I could even imagine telling the story at our wedding, "And then I had a sudden urge to go to church that night and it was there that I met (insert imaginary name)." I know. I'm ridiculous.

But, thankfully, God had different plans for me last night.

I went to church and enjoyed the songs, and everything was great. Then the guy who was leading the communion devotional was talking about how he grew up in the church, went to college, and started working in pharmacy, making lots of money and having everything going for him. But, he talked about how there was some distance between him and God. He realized that his job was getting in the way of his relationship with God. So, the next day, he put in his two-week notice and a few months later moved to India to do mission work there. He talked about when he was working in the pharmacy, it was as if he was on one end of a table and Jesus was on the other far end. But when he moved to India, it was as if Jesus came and sat right beside him. As I was listening to this, a very real and burning thought started coming into my mind. Something was also getting in the way of my relationship with God. Something that I needed to give over to him in order that I could fully come into his presence.

As I said before, I'm a hopeless romantic. I've enjoyed being single and I've enjoyed playing the field and dating around, meeting new people, having great conversations, and having lots of fun. But there's also that romantic side of me that still desires a long-term relationship. And unfortunately, sometimes I tend to dwell on that side. There have been times that I've been frustrated and stressed out by the whole dating scene, times that I've subjected myself to ridiculously awkward dates to girls that I wasn't even all that interested in in the first place (perhaps hoping for that "magic spark" to happen), many times that I've immediately went to check my facebook as soon as I've entered the room, hoping to seen an "Inbox (1)" or wall post, times when I've let dating affect my mood, and sadly times that I've neglected my thoughts and relationship with God because my thoughts are on dating. It's all ridiculous, but this is what happens when you allow two sisters, romantic comedies, Christian dating books, and the Harding marriage factory to affect you.

I realized that this had to change and that it was getting in the way of my relationship with God. Something had to be done. So as soon as church was over I made the 20 minute drive to the cliffs at Letona so I could have some alone time to pray to God. You have to walk up this small mountain to get to the cliffs, and I had only been up it once. There was no moon, so I was going up with only the light from my cell phone leading the way, doing some semi-hard core rock climbing, and trying not to fall off and die. I tried to get up to the cliffs but I realized I had missed them and somehow ended up going down the mountain and to the other side of the lake. Oh well. So I sat by the water of the lake and had some time to talk and meditate with God. I looked in my pocket bible and turned to Psalm 86 and in it I read verses 11-13,

Teach me your way, O LORD,
and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.

I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;

I will glorify your name forever.

For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.

I realized it was time for me to have a truly undivided heart. So, I believe the Spirit put something on my heart and I'm ready to commit to it. Now, don't worry, I'm not going Catholic priest and making a life-long vow of celibacy. But I have decided that I'm not going to date/pursue a relationship for the rest of Junior year. I'm going to be intentionally single until at least next May and let that be a sacrifice of praise to God. I want to give this next semester fully to God with an undivided heart and let him be in control of it. All the time that I spend thinking about/pursuing relationships, I want to spend serving God and other people.

Gee Dylan, you might say (and I might have said a few weeks ago), a large number of people find their significant other at college. You only have three semesters left in college, and now you're limiting yourself to two? Yes I am. Because I believe that whatever God wants to happen in that department is going to happen. I may date someone senior year or I may actually make it out of the marriage factory single, and I'm perfectly okay with that. I'm still a romantic, and I still hope that one day I can find that special person. But I know that God has plans for my life and he's going to guide it wherever it needs to go.

Earlier this semester, I might have been really frustrated at making this commitment. But I'm actually really really excited about it. After the rich young ruler in Mark 10 refuses to sell everything he has and give it to the poor, Jesus says:

"no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life."

I know that dating/girlfriends is not on that list, but I know that there can be a lot of blessings that come from this decision. I think this next semester is going to be filled with laughter and deep friendships and community and fun and excitement. There is going to be more time to serve and to love and to reach out to the poor and needy. Hopefully, I'll have a better attitude and be filled with more energy, joy, and peace. I am so excited for what God possibly has in store for me in this next semester.

Now, I want to make clear that I am definitely not saying all this so that I can puff myself up in some way or show myself to be righteous. I am just saying this to praise God for what he is doing and also so that you guys can help keep me accountable. Okay, glad we got that out of the way.

One last story about last night. When I got done praying to God beside the lake, I started making my way back, and I went up the mountain a little bit and suddenly I was right at the cliffs that I had previously been aiming for. It was almost as if God was telling me "You've been trying to get somewhere going your own way. But if you trust in me, I'm going to bring you where you need to be." I looked up, and since there was no clouds and no moon, I saw the most beautiful night sky I had ever seen. I could see all the constellations, the milky way, and an innumerable amount of stars. I just laid down on the cliffs and softly sang Blessed Be The Name of the Lord to myself. I knew that a God who could create all that I saw before me, could surely take care of me and guide me where he wants me to be. As that beautiful song says, "You give and take away, you give and take away, my heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name!"

The End of the Race

2007-11-30T23:23:00.000-08:00

I ran track in middle school and cross country in high school (as well as some Crazy 8 runs at Fun Fest), and one of the toughest parts was when I had to start kicking it into fifth gear for the last 400 meters of the race. I've learned that semesters in college can be very similar to cross country races. You start out strong with lots of energy, have to persevere in the middle, want to quit about 2/3 of the way through, get your second wind, get your third wind, and then you have to kick it in at the end.

So, here I am, with one week left of classes, followed by finals. I'm dead tired. I'm sick (I had to get excused from classes yesterday). I'm tired of doing these giant papers that all my teachers decided to have due this week (2 down, 1 to go). I'm tired of being up till 3:30 in the morning doing homework. I'm about 110% ready to go home. It's my most exhausted time, and it's the time that I have to work the hardest.

**Okay. End of my pity party.**

Actually, this has been an amazing, wonderful, fantastically incredible semester. And even this week has had some fun moments. I just have to push past this last part, and enjoy what I can for this last part of the semester.

I think there's always times we face in our lives when we're just trying to get by and get it over with. But it's important to still seek God out during those times, enjoy the little things, laugh, love, and live life to the fullest instead of just trying to get by. I'll try my best to do that over these last few weeks. We'll see how it goes.

Quick Post from Homework Alley

2007-11-27T22:59:00.000-08:00

The past 3 weeks have been so hectic that I haven't really had the time to pop out some good posts. I was working on a bunch of projects before Thanksgiving break, then I was having way too much fun over Thanksgiving to be on the computer long, and this week I've finished one giant paper and have two to go. Plus, I'm getting sick, so that's lame. Anyways, I thought I would have some quick comments.

Shaine Claiborne, the author of the Irresistible Revolution is coming to Searcy! For those of you who don't know, Shaine is a man who pretty much sold all he has and lives very simply in inner-city Philadelphia, ministering and being like Jesus to the impoverished in that city. He'll be speaking at Riverview High School at 7 p.m. on Saturday, December 8. Shaine's book has really affected a lot of my friends and our whole Wednesday night group is basically living off his philosophy. So, this is the equivalent of the Beatles coming to Searcy for our group.
I'm adding two great new blogs to my "Blogs I Read" section. They are from my youth minister Kyle and my minister Craig back home. They both have a lot of cool stuff to say, so go check them out.
I can't wait for the SEC Championship with by UT Vols taking on the LSU Tigers! I watched the Kentucky game with Wes and Matt on Saturday and it was one of the most stressful, emotional-draining games I've ever watched. But it was a sweet victory, and I'm proud of this team that has been able to do a whole lot when it looked like they weren't going to be able to do anything.
What's wrong with my Titans? Our once rock solid defense has been struggling mightily lately, our running game has done nothing, and our red zone offense is horrendous. I figure every team has to face adversity at some point in the season, and how you respond to that decides what team you're going to be. So, we'll see in the next few weeks whether or not the Titans are contenders or pretenders.
While we're talking about football, does anyone have the NFL Network? This is the biggest game of the year between the Packers and Cowboys and no one is going to get to watch it. It has everything you could want. Romo vs. Favre, the classic Green Bay and Dallas rivalry going back to the Ice Bowl in '67, and two 10-1 teams vying for home field advantage in the playoffs. But, it looks like I'll just have to catch highlights on Sportscenter.
I just finished a 10 page paper on How We Come to Know, I have a big paper on Postmodernism due on Thursday, and I have a 10 page project on Christian Education due on Monday. When it rains it pours.
We got our now annual Christmas lights at Harding turned on, and it is now so bright you can throw football or do your homework on the front lawn. Fun times!

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to take some medicine and go to bed. God bless!

DDG goes International

2007-11-27T22:35:00.000-08:00

DDG Films Art has finally made it to the World Wide Web! If you want to watch the masterpiece Nerf Wars from Devin, Gill, and me, you can watch it on You Tube at the following:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

I had to lower the quality to fit it onto youtube, but it's still a lot of fun. If you want a higher quality copy without interruptions, give me a blank dvd and I'll make you a copy.

Going to Hunts-vegas!

2007-11-08T22:33:00.000-08:00

I'm leaving Friday afternoon to Huntsville for Mayfair's fall retreat. I'm super excited to see the whole gang over there. It'll probably be the best weekend in the history of weekends. Keep us in your prayers!

Made Manifest

2007-11-07T21:03:00.000-08:00

Today in Greek class we were translating the story of the healing of the blind man in John 9. When Jesus' disciples ask him who sinned to cause this man to be blind Jesus replied in verse 3,

"Neither this man sinned nor his parents, but in order that the works of God might be made manifest in him"-DPSV

(DPSV stands for Dylan Pyeatt Standard Version, because I translated that straight from the Greek. Yeah!.......sorry, I'm going to forget all my Greek knowledge in a few months, so I have to enjoy it while I can. Anyways, where were we? Oh yes...)

"Neither this man sinned nor his parents, but in order that the works of God might be made manifest in him"

We talked about how this statement would have been revolutionary to Jewish listeners at the time. The Jews based their belief of suffering on their misunderstanding of God's covenant with them, believing that all those who suffered were being punished for sin in their lives (you can see this belief played out in Job by the advice of the friends of Job).

What I find revolutionary is the idea that God can use suffering, and perhaps even create suffering to accomplish his mission. We discussed in class how each one of us was also created to make manifest the works of God. God uses all the baggage that we are given to create something beautiful in the great story he is writing. I do not say this to give some big explanation for why suffering is in this world, and I certainly do not think we should offer this explanation to those in the midst of some great loss. I simply say this because I love this bible story. I love how Jesus was able to change a story of sadness, loneliness, and poverty (which this blind man certainly experienced in the first century) into joy and hope. I also think this is a challenge for us. Just as God was glorified by this man, he should be glorified by us in our daily lives. People should see Christ in us despite our struggles and trials, and perhaps even because of our trials and struggles. May we all seek to have God be φανερωθη, or made manifest in the way that we speak, act and love each and every day.

Harding's Internet is Terrible....So This Post is very very late

2007-11-01T20:43:00.001-07:00

Disclaimer: The weekend before last Mom and I went to Nashville to see the Titans/Raiders game. I wrote a post about it a few days later, and I was trying to put pictures from our trip (because the pictures were the best part of the post), but Harding's internet has been creeping and crawling the past few weeks, so I haven't been able to upload any pictures. I tried for several days to get them on and tried a variety of different methods. Finally, I made my way over to Midnight Oil, our coffee shop beside school to put the pictures on. It was still pretty slow over there, so I still didn't get to put all the pictures I wanted on. I guess I could have just made the post without pictures a long time ago......but I'm stubborn. So, here's the post I wrote last week, which seems very boring now. I know everything in this is out of date now. If you want to read it go ahead, if not, I don't blame you.

Anyways, a few weeks ago my Mom asked if I wanted her to come down for Parents Weekend at Harding. I really wanted to see her, but I told her, "Yeah, that would be great. But there's nothing really to do here in Searcy." So, we both decided we would try to meet up in Nashville and go see a Titans game at some point. Well, both of our schedules have been pretty busy, and it was looking like it would probably be till December till we could catch a good game. That all changed last Thursday.

I figured I would just scan EBAY for any future games and suddenly I saw it: 2 tickets that were due up in 15 minutes at $50 that no one had bid on yet. I kept waiting for it to go up and they never did. Finally, I called Mom to see if she wanted to make a spontaneous trip to Nashville. I made a bid with 45 seconds left and somehow got these tickets at $50.....probably the third best deal in history right next to the Babe Ruth trade and the Louisiana Purchase.

What made the weekend better was I got to see a stand up comedy show Friday night at UCA with Seth Myers (from Saturday Night Live) and Demetri Martin (from the Daily Show) with my friend Natalie. It was hilarious! Maybe it was because I was in comedy mode, but neither of them told a joke that I did not laugh at. I've pretty much decided that I would always rather see a comedian than a music concert. I would rather laugh for two hours than get pushed around in a mosh pit and not be able to understand the words of the music anyway. Seth was hilarious and I was a little surprised that he was that good at the stand up thing. Of course, Demetri was great. I've heard some of his comedy cd's, but it can't match seeing him in person.

The next morning I got in my Altima and headed for one of my favorite cities in the world.....NASHVILLE TENNESSEE!! The weather in Nashville was BEAUTIFUL (compared with the awful weather in Searcy) and it was just great to be around the city. I met up with Mom and we went to my favorite restaurant in Nashville that I used to always go to Lucy with: Ken's Japanese Restaurant. Then we went shopping and then went to the movies and saw Across the Universe, which was amazing. I'm a big Beatles fan, and the whole movie is a musical full of Beatles songs. It's probably the best movie I've seen this year. It was fun, emotional, a little trippy, and just fantastic all around. Then we swung by the hotel to catch the last few innings of Game 3 of the World Series to watch the Sox hold on to win a fairly close game and take a 3-0 lead.

The next morning we headed over to downtown Nashville, found a parking spot, and made out war to.....LP FIELD!!!! I love walking to a Titans game. You can feel the excitement in the air, everyone has on their Titans jerseys, and there's even a sense of community as we band together to cheer on our guys. It's also great making the walk over the pedestrian bridge over the Cumberland River in between downtown and the stadium. I still think it's one of the coolest spots in all of sports.

The game was fantastic. The crowd seemed a little subdued at first, but we got into it more and more as the game went along. It was close the whole time, and our defense played incredible! I can't overstate this enough.........our defensive line put pressure on Daunte Culpepper EVERY SINGLE TIME HE WENT BACK FOR A PASS! I haven't seen a Titans D-line since Jevone Kearse and Kenny Holms were rushing quarterbacks back in 2000. They made Daunte Culpepper look like......well......Daunte Culpepper. Despite a rough day from VY, our defense and running game were able to pull out a tight 13-9 win. What a game!

Of course, we missed Lucy a lot, since we always out in Nashville with her. So we said the empty seat beside us was for her.

After the game, Mom and I went to another of our Nashville favorite's SATCO. Then we said goodbye and I made a quick trip over to Lipscomb to see one of my favorite people in the whole world, my fellow intern, April Easley!!

Now, I was trying to get home as fast as I could because it was looking like the Red Sox were going to clinch the series that night. My A.M. Radio was broken, so I couldn't get the game, so I just had to rely on phone calls from my friends updating on the score. As I was going through the middle of Arkansas I lost cell phone service, so I just had to wait and try to roll through the dreaded I-64.

Finally I made it back to Harding, swung into a parking spot, and sprinted up to my room. I made it in to watch Okie close things down in the 7th. Then I watched with delight as we got some insurance runs and as Papelbon closed the door in the ninth. Then Paps threw his red-hot fastball got the strikeout for the third out, made his insane-asylum crazy victory face as Varitek and the rest of the Red Sox piled onto the pitching mound. The 2007 Red Sox.....WORLD CHAMPIONS!! I called and left a message with Laura in Brazil to celebrate and sat there in delighted exhaustion watching the team celebrate. I didn't run around the dorm this time. I was just too tired from the weekend. But this was even better, I just got to enjoy it with a huge grin on my face and relax in my joy.

Wow! So, pretty much this week I've been recovering from the exhausting weekend and still enjoying all the good times I had. Times like these are really special, and it doesn't get much better than weekends like this. I just thank God for everything and everyone I got to enjoy it with, especially Mom. Phew....can this semester get any better?

Redeeming THIS World

2007-10-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been coming into another perspective of why Jesus came into this world and in turn what our mission is. I've always subconsciously believed his main intent was just to get us to heaven. Lately however, from what I've been reading in N.T. Wright's Simply Christian and Lee Camp's Mere Discipleship, this was not the main focus of Christ's ministry. They emphasize that Jesus came not just for a kingdom in the far off heavens at a distant time, but to establish his kingdom in this world for the here and now.

Lee Camp says that we make Christian religion "something ultimately unrelated to this world, to time, or history, or human culture, and instead make it about the "other world." We wait for the "sweet by and by" when we will diet on love and mercy and goodness and God and heaven, but in the meanwhile, "down below" we wait out our time, where we have to put up with the violence and hatred and injustice and unkindness and hunger and poverty, fighting fire with fire."

In response to this worldview Camp says:

"Jesus called his disciples to participate in a kingdom that was invading human history, a kingdom so present you could reach out and touch it, a new order in their very midst [....] And it is also "this worldly" in the sense that we now see in Jesus, what it means to live life fully according to God's will, in the midst of the concerns, hurts, and pains of human history. The kingdom is not unrelated to human history, but is the new reality that redefines human history." (57-58)

This idea kind of floored me a little bit. I've always been for trying to help out this world, but it's tough to have much hope in it when you know it's all going down in flames one day anyway. It's like trying to build a giant sand castle when you know the waves are just going to wash it away anyway. I've looked at ministry as an attempt to see how many people we could get off this rock and into the world we've always dreamed of. But it seems that Christ calls us to at least attempt to make THIS rock the world we've always dreamed of. As we look at the Bible, God clearly does care about this world. We sing songs that say, "This world is not my home, I'm just a passin' through" and while that may be true, we are still called to be God's instruments to redeem this fallen world while we are "a passin' through." We are called to "make all things new" spiritually, socially, vocationally, and even ecologically. The kingdom of God has come here in this place.

So what is this kingdom? N.T. Wright puts it this way:

"With Jesus, God's rescue operation has been put into effect once and for all. A great door has swung open in the cosmos which can never again be shut. [...] We are offered freedom: freedom to experience God's rescue for ourselves, to go through the open door and explore the new world to which we now have access. In particular, we are all invited, summoned actually, to discover, through following Jesus, that this new world is indeed a place of justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty, and that we are not only called to enjoy it as such but to work at bringing it to birth on earth as in heaven." (92)

Now I must admit to you while all this seems great at first thought, I struggle with it the more I think about it. If we are indeed called to redeem this world, why are we so terrible at it? Instead of acting as the driving force for good in this world, why are we so often the source of unfathomable evil? When you look back at the history of the Church, we see the Crusades, the Inquistion, and looking the other way at the Holocaust. Even in our own country we see the church as a force for the Salem Witch Trials, justification for slavery and racism, and blatant hatred today toward people we see as "sinners." Why do so many unbelievers see us as a plague upon the earth when they should be seeing us as the salt and the light of the world? Sometimes I wonder if the world would really be off any worse without us. It's been said that more people have been killed in the name of Christ than any other name in history.

This is a very tough struggle, and one that is not easy to answer. Eventually, I just come to the conclusion that this is a fallen world and we ourselves are a fallen people. But we cannot just sit on that conclusion and be content in our despair. We must try with all of our might to change this world and to be ministers of reconciliation. We must right the wrongs, bring light to the darkness, fight hatred with love, war with peace, and despair with joy.

I know that one day this fallen world will indeed pass away and our ultimate dreams for this world are unattainable in actuality. I know that God's ultimate plans are for "a new heaven and a new earth." But God does not call us up into heaven as soon as we come out of the water. For the short time we are on the earth he calls us into the mission of bringing redemption to this world. In that light, there are very real goals that we can accomplish. We can bring hope to oppressed, food to the hungry, clothes to the naked, joy to sorrowful, and peace to those in anguish. We can live as a true community of believers, an army of love spreading out to the horizon.

May we truly become the people of God and may we work to help establish here in this place a kingdom without borders or limitations that will stretch on from here to eternity.

Quick Hits

2007-10-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

Just some quick observations from this week:

It's Pledge Week here at Harding! Get your screaming voice and crazy clothes ready! I've actually gone to two All-Club Devos this week to hear Jimmy and Coleman (both of whom did awesome), and I have to say that I was fairly blown away by the craziness. These clubs really take the roll call seriously (you can tell when the pledges sound almost too hoarse to even belt it out, because they've been yelling so much before). I was a little worried that Ju Go Ju and Xeta Rho we're going to throw down tonight when both clubs we're yelling their chants at each other before the devo started. Mmmm....feel the Christian love!
It's been bitter cold here in Searcy. It's officially entered "don't go outside for anything" status. It's pretty much the perfect storm of coldness for me: Cold temp, windy, stinging icy rain, and the fact that I haven't busted out my winter clothes yet, so I just put on a hoody over my t-shirt. I asked Tom, a British guy in my Human Situations class, if this felt like England and he said, "Yeah, pretty much exact." Welcome to Liverpool, Arkansas everyone!
Less than 24 hours from the 1st pitch of the World Series!
Jail Ministry went well tonight. I talked about Joseph's statement to his brothers about what they meant for evil, God used for good. These guys are such a blessing to me. The only problem was at some point last week one of my favorite guys got moved to a different pod because he called another guy a not nice name and the guy almost beat him up. The lesson as always: watch what you say in jail.
I'm listening to Ben Folds right now over the shared ITunes network, and it always reminds me of when some of us in our youth group made a trip to Harding when I was in 7th grade and listened to "Brick" like 872 times. That was a fun trip. I remember hating Harding at the time and especially the dorm we stayed in. 6 years later I moved into Harbin dorm as a freshman and loved every second. Good times. She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly.
I was talking to Jimmy yesterday about how cool it would be if they introduced preachers the same way they introduced the Chicago Bulls in the 90's. Can't you imagine?

(Crowd cheering and strobe lights going with the Alan Parson's Project song Sirius playing)

And now, at Youth Minister, from Harding University, delivering a sermon on Romans Chapter 8, number 4.......DYLAN PYEATT!!!!!

(Crowd goes wild)

Anyways, that's just some random ramblings for the night. I'll have something more substantial later.

Best Weekend Ever???

2007-10-21T22:26:00.000-07:00

So, this was a FANTASTIC weekend. The best way to describe it is probably a quick play-by-play.

Friday

2:50-Class is over!!
4:59-Send in an assignment for Christian Education just before the 5:00 deadline. Phew!
5:30-Really fun dinner including a game of hot potato with a pepper shaker in which Coleman slapped the shaker across our table, nailing someone's Dr. Pepper at the table beside us.

9:00-Corn Maze!!!! Is there anything more fun than being a laboratory rat surrounded by corn. Classic moments included the moment when everyone finally had the courage to say what was on their mind: that this reminded us of Harry Potter 4 (there's a dementor around the corner!) and our pun off about the corn maze including:

"This corn maze is a-MAZE-ing"
"You guys are so CORN-y"
"You're not the captain of this corn maze, but you sure are the KERNAL"
"We need to HUSK-LE"
"We're being STALK-ed"
"Aww....SHUCKS"

10:30-Trip to the bluff! Woo hoo! We had lots of good bluff questions and lots of laughs including Sam saying,
"Your music is lame. I like Ludacris and Sean Paul"

Saturday

1:30 a.m.-Halo 3. Highlight included betraying everyone over and over again in Zombies
12:00 p.m.-1st half of UT-Alabama game. Not the best moment of the weekend. Let's just move on.
1:00-Went over to Jimmy's house and had a real good talk.

3:00-Went to Latona with Coleman and Tiffany to see the cliffs and a sweet cave! It's always great to get out and see nature. Lots of fun!

6:45-Depart for Gurden with 12 people to see the haunted railroad tracks. The 2 hour car ride over there is a lot of fun with all the singing games we played. Good times!
9:00-Railroad tracks end up being pretty lame. Too many are people in our group. People are in front of us so that we can't see the headless ghost's lantern. Not the best visit ever, but the car trips are fun.
10:00-Without me getting to see it, the Red Sox cruise to a big win to tie the ALCS 3-3. That was a good thing to find out when I got back into the dorm.

Sunday

11:00 a.m.-Good times at West Pleasure COC. Great people, great singing, entertaining preaching. It's always fun to go to a church that is different from what you've always grown up with.
1:00-Fun times at Jimmy's house
2:00-Good conversation with Laura. That's all I can say right now.
3:00-Played football with Jimmy and Coleman on Woodruff Street hoping some kids would come. None came, but we had fun anyways. We know if we keep coming out regularly then we'll start to get a good turn out. If you play, they will come.
3:15-Without me knowing it at the time, the Titans hang on for a miracle win behind Rob Bironas' (Ma-Ma-Ma-My Bironas) 8 field goals to go to 4-2 for the season.
4:00-6:30-Fun Cowboys game as da Boys win a sloppy game 24-14. Not our best game, but we move to 6-1 for the season.
6:45-Quick phone call to Mom before the Red Sox game starts.

7:00-Here we go! Game 7 of the ALCS! Can Dice-K get it done? Can we keep our bats rolling? Can we complete a comeback from a 3-1 deficit? Will this game give me an a heart attack? Playoff baseball.......there's nothing better!
7:25-former Red Sox and 2004 "keep the dugout loose MVP" Kevin Millar announces our lineup. I'm feeling much better now.
8:30-After 3 innings the Red Sox lead 3-0, but we've left a lot of guys on base. I'm hoping this won't come back to haunt us. Dice-K is looking solid. Can he keep it up?
9:15-5th inning, score is 3-2. Dice-K is struggling. Men on first and third. Jacob comes in and tries to talk to me, but I am deathly silent. Dice-K strikes out Asdrubal Cabrera for the third out. Celebration! Exhale. Exhale again.
10:05-After Lugo makes an error on a fly ball he should have gotten, Guitierrez singles to put men on first and third with one out. Luckily, Kenny Lofton gets held up at third. Still, fears of 2003 ALCS game 7 come back. I can't breathe. You couldn't cut the tension in the room with a chain-saw. I might not survive this game.
10:06-Okie gets Casey Blake to ground out for a 5-4-3 double play. I'm jumping around and screaming at the top of my lungs. We might just pull this out. Then I walk around just giggling like someone in an insane asylum. The up and down emotions have officially driven me crazy. Good thing I'm alone in my room or someone would be calling the counseling center. You gotta love October!
10:25-Dustin Pedroia hits a 2-run home run! Red Sox leads 5-2!!!! Pandemonium breaks out in Keller 300!! I'm shouting, yelling, screaming oddly high-pitched noises. Dustin Pedroia was already one of my favorite players (short, skinny, quick, fun guy, initials of D.P........remind you of anyone?) and now I love him even more!
10:45-Papelbon comes into the 8th with two men on and pitches brilliantly. Jacoby Ellsbury makes a great play in center to get the third out! 3 outs away baby!!
11:07-The Red Sox have just blown the doors wide open!! D.P. hits a bases loaded double, Youk bangs a 2 run- homer, and suddenly the Red Sox are up 11-2. I've lost my voice at this point. I'm starting to wonder if it will still be snowing in Colorado next week.
11:22-Every out that Paps gets I jump out of my seat and start jumping up and down like a 6-year-old. You have to love sports just because they give you an excuse to act like a complete idiot.
11:23-Fly ball to deep center field, Coco Crisp running it down, and makes an amazing catch....and THE RED SOX ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!!!! WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!!!!! I jump up and down some more as I watch the Sox celebrate around the pitching mound! Rene watches me like I'm going to a mental institution.
11:37-After watching the trophy presentation and champagne celebration, I run through all 3 floors and the lobby of Keller holding up my Red Sox hat and shouting WE'RE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!!! Did I mention how sports gives you an excuse to act like an idiot?
11:44-I walk around the front lawn just looking for someone to celebrate with. Nobody is out tonight, so I just walk around with a stupid grin on my face and skip a little bit. I think a couple that was making out on a swing snickers at me, but what do I care? Did I mention that we're going to the World Series?
11:59-While walking around I thank God for blessing me with such an amazing weekend. What an incredible 3-day span! It's been tough to be able to keep from smiling all weekend. Wow!
12:00-Finish my lap around campus and remember to move my car so that I don't get a parking ticket. Woo ho! No parking ticket!
12:02-Text Mom: "We're going to the World Series!"

Back To Boston!

2007-10-18T22:50:00.001-07:00

After a fantastic pitching performance from Josh Beckett (8 IP, 1 ER, 11K) and some solid hitting, the Red Sox staved off elimination with a 7-1 vicotry to get the series to 3-2 and take it back to Boston. If the Sox can keep the momentum from this win going into Boston they will be tough to beat. On the mound for the Red Sox on Saturday is Curt Schilling, one of the best big game pitchers ever. The Indians will pitch Carmona, one of the best young pitchers in baseball. Both pitchers were beat up in game two, and it will be interested to see if they can bounce back for this pivotal match-up. I feel confident in Schilling for game 6, but I gotta say that I'm worried about Dice-K pitching in a potential game 7, if we make it. But for now, none of that matters. Right now, I'm just going to enjoy this win.

There's Something Happening Here.....

2007-10-14T22:17:00.000-07:00

It's tough to really explain how fantastic the past few weeks have been. Each day has really been better than the next. The best way to describe it is a quick sports analogy......but don't lose interest. I'll go through it quick so that I can really explain what I'm really trying to say.

I've been re-reading Bill Simmons' Red Sox book and I love his description of Pedro Martinez's run of utter domination from April 1999-May 2001. He talks about how every one of Pedro's starts was an event, and how people would drop everything to watch his games because they didn't want to miss something special. Each start seemed to be better than the one before it and just when you thought Pedro couldn't be anymore dominant, he would take it to an even greater level. He talked about how Pedro could bring the fans at Fenway to a higher place and how they would stand in awe of this master artist, who pitched better than any pitcher has ever pitched during a two year span. You knew you were in the presence of greatness watching Pedro and you just wanted to take everything in and appreciate it to the fullest extent, because what was happening was something that might not ever happen again.

That's really been the best way to describe the past two weeks. Just when I think things can't get any better, they somehow do. God has blessed me with so much. I've had great friendships, great conversations, great times, great laughs, great growth experiences, great fun, and just pure, wonderful joy. I just want to soak in every second.

I sometimes hate it when kids my age or younger try to offer life lessons or advice to older people that make it sound like what we know what's really going on in the world (my all-time least favorite was Avril Lavigne's song "Complicated" that started off with the repeating line of "Life's like this....." Oh please Avril, grace us by imparting your divine wisdom O great sage..................stupid emo chick). However, please indulge me as I make this observation in all humility:

At least in my life, great moments sometimes seem to happen in these short beautiful moments, and before you realize it, they've passed you by. Those moments when everything is right with the world, when God seems to have come down into this place and touched you with a little glimpse of heaven. Those days when you just can't contain your joy and you just smile all day. Those days when even things that would usually drive you crazy (say for example.....off the top of my head......the Red Sox, Titans, and Cowboys losing all within 24 hours of each other) don't make the slightest impact into your mood. These moments are special, and I think it's important to soak them in, enjoy them for all their worth, and praise God for every second. Smile, laugh, and open your eyes to the beauty that's all around you.

Of course, I know that it is important to look at God's blessings and be thankful even when times are tough. That is definitely true. But I also think it's important that when times are really really good, that you take some time to really let it soak in. I think David says it best in these words of praise in Psalm 37:4-9

I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.

Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.

This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.

Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

Fear the LORD, you his saints,
for those who fear him lack nothing.

Times like these are really wonderful and I thank God for each and every moment. Plus, they make me dream of a time when moments like this will go on for all eternity, and that gives me even more joy. May we all look at our blessings and truly "Taste and see that the Lord is good."

Mid-Semester Review

2007-10-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

So now that midterms will be done after tomorrow (once my dreaded Greek III final is done), the first half of this semester will officially be over. Sometimes it feels like I just got here and other times it feels like it's been years since I pulled up in my Altima and met the guys in Keller. Anyway, I figured it would be a good time to look back on what's happened.

Eight weeks ago I can honestly tell you that I wasn't crazy excited about coming back to Harding. I was coming off of one of the best summers of my life after a fantastic internship in Huntsville and a 3 week tour of fun in Kingsport. I was sure it would be a good semester and I'd have some fun, but there wasn't much waiting for me in Searcy. Little did I know then that in the next eight weeks a 38-year-old burnout preacher, a felon awaiting trial, a book by an ethics professor from Lipscomb, and some soccer with some kids in the "shady" part of town would turn my life completely upside-down.

Coleman had told me about meeting Jimmy over the summer and all the ministry plans they had. For those that don't know, Jimmy is a former preacher, who moved to Searcy a few years ago and is perhaps the most idealistic man I have ever met when it comes to spreading the love of Christ. I know that I'm not going to learn anything in any of my classes this semester that will come near to what I'm going to learn from Jimmy. It's really nice to have a good friendship with a real adult here (something that I never managed to get in my first two years in Searcy). I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen with Jimmy and Coleman's plans, and neither did they, but I knew I wanted to be a part of it. By the second week of school, a group of us had our first meeting talking about how we could get involved with the disenfranchised of Searcy. The next week, we had our first Wednesday Night "Bible Study" with the slogan of "No More Phase One!" (Phase one is the act of sitting around and TALKING about how important serving and being missional is, but without actually doing anything). The next week, we had already planned out how we were going to get involved in a neighborhood on Woodruff Street (if there's a "bad part of town" in Searcy, most residents would point to Woodruff Street). The next week we were playing soccer and football with the kids in the neighborhood and starting to build relationships, and we've been doing that every week since. Now we're planning on adding more time in the neighborhood and service projects on Sunday, and our plans are only going to get more and more exciting from this point on.

Another exciting aspect has been the opportunity to get involved in Jail Ministry again. Coleman and I got to start our "Batman and Robin of Jail Ministry" routine again. By our third week, we had a completely new batch of guys, who are by far the best group I have ever had in jail. These guys come excited every week, come up with harmonies for our old-school "I'll Fly Away" songs, get totally involved in our lessons, and will spend hours just talking to us afterwards about their lives and spiritual journeys. Their stories break your heart and then lift you up again. I couldn't have asked for a better experience.

Meanwhile, I have been going through a pretty significant worldview shift over the past few weeks. I've been having many long conversations with Jimmy, Coleman, Colby, Jon, Jesse, and many others about taking our faith in a more radical direction. The book we've been reading Mere Discipleship by Lee Camp and the conversations and ideas sprouting from that has added gasoline to this fire. Now, my dreams of comfortable suburbia have been replaced by dreams of communal living (possibly sooner than later) and minimalism. Mr priorities of girls, sports, sleep, X-BOX and my desires for my comfort are being pushed back. New ideas are continually coming and will probably continue to grow exponentially.

In past semesters, I would have mentioned a lot of other things first in a mid-semester review. I guess they don't seem as important. Classes are good, boring but good. My friends are good. I'm making new friends, and my older friendships with some are strengthening while some have lessened, but it's all good. All in all, things are going great! Exciting things are happening and exciting things are on the way. God has really blessed me this semester more than I could possibly imagine. It's only halftime, and hopefully this semester can be like the Cowboys and be really strong in the second half (I think the Cowboys have outscored their opponents by something like 989-3 in second halves this season). I'm excited by what God has in store. Let's go!

Mighty Men

2007-10-10T12:58:00.000-07:00

Last night in Jail Ministry I gave a devo on David's Mighty Men from 2 Samuel 23. This is one of my favorite little sections in the Old Testament and it's one that gets skipped over a lot. The section just quickly summarizes the exploits of David's elite soldiers. Some of my favorites are Josheb-Basshebeth, who killed 800 men in one encounter with just a spear, Eleazar, who fought off Philistines till his hand froze to his sword, and Beniaiah, who armed with only a club took on a huge Egyptian who had a spear, and ended up killing the Egyptian with his own spear.

Basically I talked about how God was able to do mighty things through them and can also do amazing things through us (though hopefully less violent!). MIGHTY was the theme for last year's IMPACT and it's something that has stuck with me going into this year. Being a mighty man for God calls you to transcend the usual ho-hum and passive style of life and calls you into something greater. It was interesting, because after Jail Ministry, Coleman and I met Jimmy to hear out his plan for doing some cool service projects on Sundays. I was resistant at first because my Sundays are usually reserved for Church, food, football, napping, and more football. But doesn't following God call me to leave my usual comfortable way of living and call me into something greater?

There have been a lot of things causing me to challenge my normal way of living my daily life. Jimmy and Coleman have been challenging me a lot (especially my dream of living in a nice suburban house), Dr. Neller has challenged me to be a radical disciple in daily life, my sisters examples in China and Brazil have challenged me to truly live out your life in service to others, and the book I've been reading, Mere Discipleship by Lee Camp has challenged me go beyond my normal beliefs of Christianity and look at Jesus' call in a whole new way. All of these seem to be calling for me to leave my easy way of living and thinking into something greater.

Perhaps God is calling me, and all of us, into a relationship beyond the parameters of comfort and ease into a something that is perhaps.....MIGHTY?

I'm Getting Kind of Good At This School Thing

2007-10-08T00:54:00.001-07:00

Due in about 6 hours is a monster assignment that I just got done. We had to read a 300 page detailed commentary on John and write a 3 page summary/critique of it. Going into today I had only read the first few chapters, so I knew I had to kick it into gear. But, I couldn't sleep last night, so I had to take a nap this afternoon. Then I had to watch the Red Sox complete their sweep of the Angels. Then I had to get some dinner. Then I had to watch the beginning of the Packers/Bears game before I went to Downtown's night service. After that I knew I had to start on this beast when Coleman texted me telling me to come over to Jimmy's. I figured I'd stop by, and we ended up talking about communal living, biblical theology, and movies till midnight. I got back and read what I could until about 1:00.

So there I sat, 1:00 in the morning with nothing written. But I was like Vince Young on this one and didn't flinch. I ate some Ramen noodles, had a Dr. Enuff, made a quick outline of what I was going to write (which actually helps out a whole lot) and went to work. An hour and a half later, not only did I have the 3 minimum pages......I had 5! And you know what? It's pretty darn good. I rocked out that paper! Of course, maybe I just think it's good because it's 3:00 in the morning. But, I really think I'm getting the hang of college. At least for now. We'll see when I start my seminar classes next year!

Anyways, I'm gonna take a 5 and half hour nap and then go print this thing off in the library at 8:30 before my 9:00 class. Hmmm......sounds like another nap is coming up tomorrow afternoon.

Minimalism

2007-10-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

Lately, my friends and I have been talking about what it would look like to be a people not tied to earthly possessions. We've been talking about how we could be minimalists in the future and even now at college. My friend Coleman talks about being good stewards here. He's been making real changes, such as not buying Coke and other various things. I've been thinking about this a lot for my future and for right now.

Am I a minimalist? Not yet. I want to be, and I feel that there are ways that I try to live minimally. However, many of my minimalist ways are just forced on me because I'm a poor college student. If I had more funds, I would probably buy a lot more crap. So I started thinking, "If Jesus told me to sell all my possessions, what would I have trouble parting with?" I'll call these my big 6:

1. My Computer

2.My cell phone

3. My hats (My Red Sox hat is in my car, but I love it too)

4. My TV (not the XBOX 360, that's my roommate's)

5. My books/movies

6. The camera I took these pics with

There's probably some more that I can't think of. I should probably put my car down, but anyone who knows the history of me and my Nissan Altima, they probably wouldn't be surprised if I just sold it in a fit of rage.

Are these things bad in and of themselves? No. In fact, I use things such as my computer, cell phone, and car to coordinate ministry activities. I read Christian books. I wear my hats to identify with people (okay, that one's a stretch). Am I going to sell all these and give the money to the poor? Probably not (however, if Jesus actually told me to, then I hope that I would). Being a college student, there's not a lot that ties me down, and I'm really happy about that. My point is not that I'm hoping to get rid of ALL my worldly possessions. I guess really I just want to try not to add any more to that list (or at least maybe not much more). I know that as I get older and start to have more money, responsibilities, and possibly a family, the temptation and possibly the necessity to have more things are going to grow. So is very important that I start building a discipline for good stewardship now before those come. I still have a long way to go, and God may call more of me soon (he may even call me to give up some of the big 6 someday). But I know that God calls us to more than just having a good heart or attitude of detachment from our treasures in this world, he actually calls us to actually live that out. I hope that in the future and in the present I can do a better job of honoring God by what I "give" and "give up". It's time to really start pondering what it means to be one who places their treasures in heaven instead of in this world. May God give me wisdom and courage to find out!

Rocky Top Strikes Back!

2007-10-06T23:22:00.001-07:00

After, two tough losses and pitiful displays from our defense all season, the Vols finally showed up this season. And boy did they show up! Eric Ainge was perfectly efficient, our receivers made plays, and Foster did fantastic. Most importantly, our defense finally showed their stuff and DOMINATED a strong Bulldog offense. UT completely obliterated the Bulldogs, taking a 28-0 lead into halftime and never looked back.

With Florida's losses to Auburn and LSU, the Vols actually control their own destiny in the SEC. If they can somehow win out, they can go all the way to the SEC Championship. Of course, in the the way are several tough opponents such as South Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, and Kentucky, as well as teams that could possibly surprise us such as MSU and Vandy (how can anyone possibly think the PAC-10 is better than the SEC?). After our beating by Florida two weeks ago, I would have said that was next to impossible. But now, if we play the way we did today, anything's possible.

In 2001, UT won against Florida and were a game away from the National Championship, when they went to play LSU in the SEC Championship. Matt Mauck and the Tigers ended up upsetting us in a devastating game. My dream: sweet revenge as LSU could likely be in position to go to the National Championship, only we upset them in the SEC Championship. Haha! That would be perfect! Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?

2007 MLB Playoff Picks

2007-10-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

I know I was supposed to do this before the playoffs started, but I didn't get a chance to. Anyways, I gotta go here soon, but I'll go through and throw out some picks.

Yankees vs Indians

This is a very intriguing match-up, and it's tough to pick. The Indians possibly have the best two pitchers in the playoffs this year. Sabathia and Carmona have been dominant this season. The Yankees meanwhile have Wang, a tired looking Pettite, Clemens (who hasn't pitched in 23 days), and some other terrible pitchers. The Yankees have a better offense, but the Indians have a spry underrated offense and they could possibly get a lot of runs across, especially against the Yanks starters.

However, this is the big x-factor. The Indians closer is Joe Borowski, who is horrible and has an ERA over 5. Do you really think he can handle the Yankees line-up in the pressure cooker situation of the playoffs? Meanwhile, the Yankees have the red hot Joba Chamberlain (which will be the single most annoying subplot of the playoffs as announcers ramble on and on about the Joba rules) and of course the Sandman, Mariano Rivera. I think the Yanks can steal one in Cleveland and then finish it out in New York.

My pick: Yanks in 4

Angels at Red Sox

A few weeks ago, as the Red Sox huge lead over the Yankees kept slipping away, I was more worried. Now, they're healthy, their pitchers seem to be getting back on form, Manny's back, J.D. Drew actually has a soul, and Big Papi is being Big Papi again. As Bill Simmons says in his playoff preview:

"In 2007, he stopped locking in. He looked tired. It looked like his knees were bothering him. Something wasn't right. Statistically, there wasn't a significant difference from 2004-06 except for the home run drop ... but something wasn't right. You could see it. Then he caught fire in mid-August, kept it going into September and morphed into the old Big Papi again. In the process, the Red Sox stopped resembling the team that broke out to a 36-16 start thanks to starting pitching, two great relievers and a solid offense; now they have decent starting pitching, one great reliever, three decent relievers and a much more dangerous offense. In other words, they look like the 2004 team, mostly because David Ortiz looks like the 2004 David Ortiz again. For the other seven playoff teams, this is a bad thing."

It seems like the Sox have been saving up the past few months to try and peak in the playoffs. I like they're starters, bullpen, lineup, and defense. As far as this series goes, the Sox have owned the Angels all year, and especially their ace John Lackey. The Angels have some spunk, and you never know what they are going to do. The Red Sox just look a lot better on paper though. However, in the playoffs, usually what's on paper is not what ends up happening. I mean, an awful looking Cardinals team came in and won the World Series last year. So, you never know what's going to happen.

My Pick: Red Sox in 4

Rockies vs. Phillies

The N.L is a lot harder to predict that the A.L. Part of this is because all the teams finished very strong, and partly because the players and teams are not nearly as well known. This is a really tough series to judge. Both teams came in really hot down the stretch, with the Rockies coming in really really hot , winning 14 out of 15. I think the Phils just have more talent on offense and better pitching in this one. Even though I just watched Colorado win Game 1, I think it may be a case of peaking too early. But who knows?

My Pick: Phillies in 5

Diamondbacks vs. Cubs

This could be a very weird series. Arizona is the first team since the 1906 White Sox to have to worst batting average and the best record in the league. I think their offense is pretty terrible. After Brandon Webb, their pitching is good, but not great.

On the other side, the Cubbies were only able to squeeze their way out of a terrible NL Central. They do have a pretty good offense (for NL standards) and good pitching. I don't know, I think this could come down to who wins the big game 1 pitching match-up of Zambrano and Webb. If Arizona can force it to a game 5, I might give them the edge, but I think I'm going to go with the Cubs.

My pick: Cubs in 4

ALCS

The Yankees scare the snot out of me against the Sox. They've owned us in August and September, winning 5 of the last 6. It almost seems like they've gotten back that edge over the Sox. Either way, it's going to be a gut-wrenchingly stressful series and Armageddon could happen because of this series. After the 2003/2004 series it's impossible to pick what's going to happen in these series, but since Big Papi is looking good again, I'll go ahead and say he makes a big hit in game 7 at Fenway to win the series.

My Pick: Sox in 7

NLCS

I think if the Cubs win a series and start gaining some steam, they could end up being really tough. With their crowd behind them, I think it will be very tough to win in Wrigley. The Red Sox and White Sox proved there's no such thing as curses anymore, so I'm going with the Cubs.

My pick: Cubs in 6

World Series

Cubs and Red Sox? Wait, how did that happen. But hey, no matter who's in the world series all the AL teams are a lot better than the NL teams (which I hate since I'm a big NL fan). Again, this was the case last year, and somehow the Cards got hot enough to fly through and win it all. However, this year I think the disparity is even bigger. I'm saying a big win for the Sox (come on, did you really think I would pick against my 2nd favorite team to win it all?)

My pick: Red Sox in 4

Thinking about the Future

2007-10-01T22:45:00.000-07:00

With the sudden realization of "Oh snap! I'm going to be a real adult in 19 months!" suddenly coming upon me, I've been thinking about the future lately. In 19 months I'll be out in the real world and I'm going to have to get a real job, real housing, and start paying my real student loans. My little safe haven of Harding will be gone and I'll be out in the world beyond Searcy, Arkansas. Again I say to you, "Oh snap!"

Now, of course this is just an over-reaction. Obviously, I have plenty of time until May 2009. But this is the first time that this graduation date has come into the real foreseeable future. Of course, this is much too far away to make any sort of plans. It's too far away to even think what I want to be doing. A million things could come up between now and then and could change my direction entirely (not to mention the fact that Jesus could come back......I mean, literally anything could happen). I see in front of me hundreds of different opportunities that could possibly arise and hundreds of different directions that my life could take.

Still, with a combination of fun, excitement, and unbelievable fear, I still catch myself glimpsing about what could happen past that May 2009 date. Career wise, my options that seem the most viable to me as of now (key phrase: as of now) are either going to Grad school, getting a youth ministry job, or doing mission work. Other things could definitely pop up, but those are the ones I dream about the most. I would be happy with any of those options, though perhaps not really thrilled about the idea of Grad School so soon after under-grad.

Anyways, I bring this up to talk about a fun conversation my good friend Coleman and I had tonight. Coleman and I have been friends since early freshman year, and we've been ministry partners in various things, such as jail ministry, a Nicaragua mission trip, and our big plans for this year (that's for another blog). Anyways, we've always worked well together, and we kind of balance each other out. He's very realistic, pragmatic, and practical, while I can be idealistic, emotional, and unrealistically optimistic (sorry if there's too many "-ics" in there). Coleman has always dreamed of moving up north to a city like Seattle, be a history teacher, and starting a church plant. My dreams usually tended to be something like stay south around some place like Nashville, get a good youth ministry job, and shack up there. So, I guess we always figured our ministry partnership would be over after college. However, today we finally had the conversation of, "What if we could still work together in some way using some combination of those dreams?" We have no idea how this would take place and in what form it could take, but it was fun coming up with possible hypothetical situations of how we could minister to any number of cities (we came up with tons: Seattle, Portland, St. Paul, San Francisco). It's all just guesses and it's all totally hypothetical, but it's fun and exciting to think of what God could do through us. The chances of any of this happening is probably very low and it would probably be tough to find a situation where both of us could be in the same city. But hey, it's fun to dream, and you never know what God is going to do.
I sometimes get so frustrated when people tell me that "College is the best time of your life." I mean, I love college and I'm going to soak everything out of it and enjoy it as much as I can while I'm here. But, I'm also really excited about what God has planned for me next. I believe and I hope that there are many amazing things to come. It's scary, but bring it on. Future, let's see what you have in store.

QB Power Rankings

2007-09-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

So, I've been wanting to write this specific blog for a while. I thought it would be fun to rank all 32 starting quarterbacks for this season. Now, this is difficult to do for several reasons. The first is that a lot of teams are already going through quarterback changes, so it's difficult to tell which starting qb to put down, so, I'll do my best.

The second is simply the question of how to best rank all the players. Do you look at this year, which is only 3 games into the season and doesn't give you a very good sampling or do you look at last year which is already outdated (for example, Ben Rothlesberger looked like he did a keg stand before every game last season, while this season he has been playing exactly the way he needs to in order to win the game). Also, which is more important: stats or wins? So, this is what went in my head in order to rank the quarterbacks from greatest to least.

1. If your life depended on one football game, who would you feel most/least confident about starting at QB (specifically how you would feel about that QB driving down the field in the last minute of the 4th quarter)?
2. How the QB lead his team in 2006
3. The direction the QB is taking the team in 2007
4. The QB's overall career
5. 2006 stats
6. 2007 stats

Notice that I don't focus too much on stats. For example, based on last year's statistics, Vince Young would be in the bottom 10 quarterbacks in the league while Marc Bulger would have been one of the top QB's. Anyways, enough setup. Here we go:

The "Call In the Backup" Division

32. Kelly Holcombe/Tavaris Jackson/Brooks Bollinger-Minnesota Vikings

Kelly Holcombe
2006-N/A
2007-50% Comp 0 TD/0 INT/165 Yds
Tavaris Jackson
2006-58% Comp 2 TD/4 INT/475 Yds
2007-53.6% Comp 1 TD/5 INT/329 Yds
Brooks Bollinger
2006-72.2% Comp o TD/1 INT/146 Yds
2007-75% Comp 0 TD/0 INT/26 Yds

I didn't really know who to even put for the Vikings' QB since all of them have played and all them are so bad. You know you're in trouble when the guy you touted as the future of your franchise in Tavaris Jackson is replaced by KELLY HOLCOMBE in the second game. All of these guys are terrible, and Minnesota's only chance is to hand it off to Adrian Peterson 40 times a game. I actually got drafted by Minnesota in Superstar Mode in Madden '08, and of course got immediately sent up to the top of the depth chart. Maybe if the Vikings can import my character into real life, then they can actually have a chance this year.

31. Joey Harrington-Atlanta Falcons

2006-57.5% Comp 12 TD/15 INT/2236 Yds
2007-68.8% Comp 2 TD/2 INT/ 760 Yds

I've been trying to give Joey Harrington the benefit of the doubt ever since he's been in the league. I would always say, "Come on, he's been playing for Detroit and Miami." Of course, he did come into an impossible situation this year after coming in last minute for PETA enemy #1, but eventually you just have to face facts and say that Joey Harrington is just not a good quarterback. Byron Leftwitch will probably replace him next week (if not in the 2nd half this week) and Joey will make the back-up circuit before making his way to NFL Europe. I think I know the secret of Harrington's demise, though. Can you really follow a guy into battle whose name is "Joey"? I still think that if he suddenly called a press conference to announce he's changing his name to "Joe Harrington" his stats would suddenly shoot up. But that would make too much sense.

30. Derek Anderson-Cleveland Browns

2006-56.4% 5 TD/8 INT/793 Yds
2007-52% 7 TD/4 INT/760 Yds

Despite his crazy game against Cincinnati in week 2, I still have no confidence in Derek. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, but I still think that Brady Quinn is going to be sent in about week 8. Of course, that probably won't help anything, because this is still the Cleveland Browns.

29. Rex Grossman/Brian Griese-Chicago Bears

2006- 54.6% 23 TD/20 INT/3193 Yds
2007-52.8% 1 TD/6 INT/ 500 yds

It's hard to believe that the guy who "led" his team to the Super Bowl is getting benched by week 4. But, that's what you get with the Rex Grossman. I actually don't think Rex is as bad as everyone thinks he is. Remember, this guy was the MVP favorite halfway through last year's season. But I think he just hasn't been able to stand up to the constant pressure and criticism that Jay Marrioti and the rest of the country throws on him. However, since he has clearly folded under that pressure, you have to look for options elsewhere. I don't think Griese is the answer though. This is the same guy who got chased out of Denver with burning torches and is described by his teammates in Chicago as "aloof" and "unfriendly." That just doesn't sound like the type of guy that you want to lead your team. My answer: go with Kyle Orton. His teammates love him, and he's lead this Bears team to the playoffs before. He won't be great, but he'll be good enough to win you some games, or at least not lose them. If that doesn't work, try to get Drew Bledsoe out of retirement.

28. Daunte Culpepper-Oakland Raiders

2006-60.4% 2 TD/3 INT/929 yds
2007-57.1% 0 TD/0 INT/118 yds

You know it's bad when you got benched for Joey Harrington last year. But, it looks like he'll be in for a few weeks until McNown gets healthy again. I put Daunte this high because everyone said during the pre-season that he hooked himself up to the rejuvination machine. Plus, 3 years ago this guy was one of the top 3 QB's in the NFL. There has to be something left in there, right? Well, maybe not, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him have a few good games.

The "We'll Settle For This Guy......For Now" Division

27. Damon Huard-Kansas City Chiefs

2006-60.7% 11 TD/1 INT/1878 yds
2007-67.8% 2 TD/3 INT/549 yds

Huard had a fantastic run coming in for an injured Trent Green last year. However, he has looked really flat this year. Plus, now that LJ is completely dead from his 420 carries last season, I don't think Huard can get it done with more pressure on the passing game. I'm looking at the Chiefs going 3-13 this year. Sorry, KC fans, I guess you'll just have to look forward to the Royals in the Spring. Wait, bad idea. Why don't you guys just take a break from the sports scene for a while.

26. Trent Green-Miami Dolphins

2006-61.1% 7 TD/9 INT/1342 yds
2007-61.4% 4 TD/5 INT/824 yds

I think if it wasn't for injuries, Trent Green would have been known as one of the better QB's of the last 10 years. He got injured playing for the Rams and some guy from the Arena league named Kurt Warner took over, and he played well in KC until getting injured last year. He's not playing well this year, but he's also playing with the Dolphins. So, I don't think he's as bad as people thinks he is.

25. Marc Bulger-St. Louis Rams

2006-62.9% 24 TD/8 INT/4301 yds
2007-57.8% 2 TD/3 INT/651 yds

Based solely on stats, Bulger was one of the best QB's in the league last year. But when you think about it, with the Receiving core, running game, and offensive line that the Rams had last year, I think Casey Clausen could go in and have a decent year with the Rams. Plus, Marc Bulger just doesn't win games. Period. He may put up a lot of yards, but when you need someone to come through in the clutch, there are a lot of quarterbacks (24 to be exact) that I'd feel better about leading my team. Throw in the fact that he's been stinking the joint this year in every aspect of the game and it's easy to see that Bulger is just not a good QB.

24. Jake Delhomme-Carolina Panthers
2006-61% 17 TD/11 INT/2805 yds
2007-64% 8 TD/1/INT/626 yds

Delhomme was actually having a good year until he got injured last week. I actually think that if he stayed completely healthy this year the Panthers could have a shot at the playoffs. But when you throw in perennial disappointment David Carr into the mix, it could be a long season. Let's hope for Panther fans that Delhomme gets healthy quick.

23. Matt Leinart-Arizona Cardinals
2006-56.8% 11 TD/12 INT/2547 yds
2007-54.1% 2 TD/3 INT/454 yds

I actually thought that Matty had a pretty decent rookie year considering the situation (the fact that he was playing for the Cardinals). But after a slow start this year, Ken Wisenhunt inexplicably pulled him in the second half of last week's game in favor of Kurt Warner. This move makes no sense to me. Wisenhunt claims that Warner gives them an advantage in certain schemes. Why not just teach Leinart to do those schemes better. How can you kill the confidence of the kid who's supposed to be the future of your franchise? Leinart is still learning and he needs time to develop, but I still think that he has the capacity to be one of the better QB's in the league, as long as his coach doesn't make anymore idiotic moves (Speaking of which, why are people so big on Wisenhunt? His resume is that he was an offensive coordinator for the Steelers, but when has Pittsburgh been known for their offense? During their run they got by with a staunch defense and an offense that did enough to get out with a win. Supposedly Wisenhunt was the mastermind of that team? I give the credit to Russ Grimm and Bill Cowher. From what Wisenhunt has done so far, I am not impressed.

The Mediocrity Division

22. Alex Smith-San Francisco 49'ers

2006-58.1% 16 TD/16 INT/2890 yds
2007-51.8% 1 TD/1 INT/ 461 yds

Um.....I have no idea about this guy. So far, I'm not impressed. He seems like the perfect example of mediocrity. I'm so perplexed by this guy that I'm just getting frustrated, so let's just move on.

21. David Garrard-Jacksonville Jaguars
2006-60.2% 10 TD/9 INT/1735 yds
2007-64% 3 TD/ 0 INT/ 630 yds

A lot of people would probably put Garrard higher on the list. He's decent, but the fact remains that the Jags have an incredible defense, a powerful running game, and yet were only 8-8 last year and looking just as mediocre this year. What's the problem in this equation? Garrard is good, but he will never do anything notable at QB. If the Jags want to take their team to the next level, then they need to find a new QB. Or maybe I'm just saying these things because the Titans have destroyed him their last two games.

20. J.P. Losman-Buffalo Bills
2006-62.5% 19 TD/14 INT/3051 yds
2007-63.8% 0 TD/1 INT/255 yds

Losman was actually pretty good last season and almost led a bad Bills team to the playoffs. He can be inconsistent but he has a lot of upside potential. Unfortuantely, he's injured for the next 4 weeks and the Bills are toast without him. Poor Bills fans, they have their first decent QB since Doug Flutie and he gets injured. Is Jim Kelly available?

19. Chad Pennington-New York Jets
2006-64.5% 17 TD/16 INT/3352 yds
2007-72.1% 4 TD/0 INT/ 291 yds

I gotta say that Chad has always been a cool player, and it's always fun to watch someone who looks like their 13 years old in the face play in the NFL (and with the arm strength of a 13 year old). I just don't know how long he's got. From this point on, every bad game he has, the Jets fans will start calling for Clemens to come in. That's a pretty difficult situation for someone who can't throw the ball 20 yards down the field.

18. Matt Shaub-Houston Texans
2006-66.7%/1 TD/2 INT/208 yds
2007-75.9%/4 TD/3 INT/688 yds

Shaub has gone in and completely rejuvenated the Texans. Well can you be rejuvenated if you've never been good before? We'll say he's um, juvenated the Texans. He's also gone in and single-handedly destroyed any excuses people used to make for David Carr. This guy looks legit, but I need to see a little more before I bump him up on the list anymore. I'll stay tuned.

17. Jay Cutler-Denver Broncos
2006- 59.1% 9 TD/5 INT/ 1001 yds
2007-65.3% 3 TD/4 INT/795 yds

Cutler had a pretty good rookie year, but he hasn't looked all that great so far this year. The Broncos are 2-1 so far, but they could very easily be 0-3. I think Cutler has all the tools to be successful, I'm just not sure if he has that it factor that the great QB's need. We'll see how it goes.

16. Jason Campbell-Washington Redskins
2006-53.1% 10TD/6 INT/1297 yds
2007-52.4% 2 TD/3 INT/621 yds

I'm not sure if Jason Campbell is actually as good as I think he is or if he just looks better compared to all the Redskins QB's of the past 10 years. His passing game isn't great, but he has the ability to run, and it seemed like he was able to do what it takes to win a couple of weeks against Philly. Although, I wouldn't be upset if he didn't turn out to be any good, because I hate the Redskins.

15. Jeff Garcia-Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2006-61.7% 10 TD/2 INT/1309 yds
2007-66.2% 2 TD/0 INT/595 yds

Garcia came for an injured Donavan McNabb in last year and played incredibly as he led the Eagles to another division title and into the playoffs. He's playing pretty well with the Bucs this year, and they now stand at 2-1. Can he keep it up? I think so.

14. Eli Manning-New York Giants
2006-57.7% 24 TD/18 INT/ 3244 yds
2007-61.3% 6 TD/4 INT/755 yds

Eli always gets a bad rap because he's constantly being compared to Peyton. People just have to get used to the fact that Eli is different from Peyton. Eli is more introverted, more of a recluse, and not the "natural leader" that Peyton is. But he's still a good QB. Not great, but good. I did think he was pretty hard core for coming back in week 2 when everyone was saying before that he'd be out at least 4 weeks. Not bad.

13. Jon Kitna-Detroit Lions
2006-62.4% 21 TD/22 INT/4208 yds
2007-68.4 % 6 TD/4 INT/980 yds

I've always thought Kitna was one of the more underrated players in the league. He had a good year last year and has been playing well this year. It helps to be under the Mike Martz system, but Kitna also has a certain hutzpah about him. When he came back in the second half a couple of weeks ago after having a concussion, some called it stupid. It may have been, but it was also gutsy. You know you have a pretty good QB when one of your players says, "Other teams can have their Brady's and Manning's, but we'll take Jon Kitna any day." That may be a bit much, but it still shows you something when your QB has that much respect from his teammates.

The Franchise QB's Division

12. Philip Rivers-San Diego Chargers
2006-61.7% 22 TD/ 9 INT/ 3388 yds
2007-70.1% 5 TD/4 INT/ 675 yds

Rivers had a very good year last year, which people forget was his first as a starter. He's played okay this year, but the Chargers are only 1-2. Although that's probably more the fault of Norv Turner that Rivers. Plus, not many people mention the fact that the Chargers have no wide receivers. They have LT and Antonio Gates to throw to, but the pickings get slim after that. Rivers is just good enough to make people forget about that fact.

11. Steve McNair-Baltimore Ravens
2006-63% 16 TD/12 INT/3050 yds
2007-65.6% 1 TD/1 INT/ 401 yds

Even though he didn't put up gaudy stats, McNair was one of the main reasons thed Ravens won their division last year. Next to Manning and Brady, there's no one else in the league I would rather have driving my team down the field in the 4th quarter with 2 minutes to go. I still miss him playing for the Titans and it's tough to watch him do well with the Ravens. However, I've got a bad feeling that McNair's oft-injured body is going to catch up with him this year (it already did in one game). I just don't see him making it through the season. I still love him, though and I hope that when he enters the Hall of Fame, he'll enter as a Titan.

10. Ben Rothlisberger-Pittsburgh Steelers
2006-59.7% 18 TD/23 INT/3513 yds
2007-59.7% 6 TD/1 INT/563 yds

Everyone in Pittsburgh, including Big Ben is looking into getting the Eternal Sunshine guys to remove the 2006 season from their minds. But, it looks like Benny is into his old form and is playing well. He doesn't have to win the game on his own, but when he's on form, he does enough to win the game. Just know that if you ever get a chance to talk to him in 20 years about his career he'll say something like this:

"Yeah it was great winning the Super Bowl and then.......(long pause) and then we came strong in 2007. Although I was always confused as to where Coach Cowher went."

9. Vince Young-Tennessee Titans
2006-51.5% 12 TD/13 INT/2199 yds
2007-62.7% 3 TD/2 INT/426

His passing stats may not look great, and a lot of people would not put him this high on their lists. I admit that I'm biased when it comes to VY (I love him!!!!!), but you also have to look at the facts. With his ability to run the ball, he is one of the most impossible players to defend. His passing game has improved a lot this year and there is a definite notable difference with the zip in which he throws the ball. He is always able to make the big play when it needs to be made. The Titans would be 3-0 if Brandon Jones hadn't dropped a pass on 3rd and 4 with 40 seconds to go against the Colts. Plus, whenever Vince goes back in the shotgun on 3rd down, I always think, 'There is no way that we're not getting this first down!' That's not something you can say about most QB's. In fact, I was shocked when Vince actually didn't complete the 4th quarter comeback against the Colts. You know you're in good shape when you're shocked your QB doesn't make a tough comeback against the defending Super Bowl champs.

8. Matt Hasselbeck-Seattle Sehawks
2006-56.6% 18 TD/15 INT/2442 yds
2007-64.9% 5 TD/2 INT/ 751 yds

Hasselbeck is one of the most underrated players in the league, and no one really pays attention to him as he is consistently one of the best QB's in the league. Part of this is due to the fact that he's way up in the far corner of the country and the fact that his city is populated by coffee drinking computer nerds and emo kids. Still, he always puts up great numbers and has a knack for getting his team the win. Plus, I'm still impressed from when he won the toss against the Packers in an overtime playoff game a few years ago and said, "We'll take the ball and we're gonna win it." They ended up losing, but it was still one of the coolest moves ever.

7. Brett Favre-Green Bay Packers
2006-56% 18TD/18 INT/3885 yds
2007-64% 6 TD/2 INT/861 yds

Favre has had a rough time the past couple of years, but he's really been back to the 90's version of Favre again. I feel like I'm caught in such a time warp that I keep expecting the Wallflowers to be popular again. What's even more impressive is that he's gotten the Packers to 3-0 when they have a TERRIBLE running game. I really hope he keeps it up and I'll be rooting for him all year. He's one of the greatest ever and it's fun to watch him on his game again.

6. Drew Brees-New Orleans Saints
2006-64.3% 26 TD/11 INT/4418 yds
2007-63.8% 1 TD/7 INT/677 yds

It's kind of a stretch to put Brees up this high considering how bad he has been this year (7 interceptions!). Let me defend myself. The Saints' defense has been so atrocious this year that Brees has been forced to take chances that he wouldn't normally take. I'm choosing to believe that the first 3 games this season have been an aberration. You have to take into account how incredible his season was last year. Although, if he plays as bad as he did against the Titans on Monday again, then I'll have to start moving him down my list.

5. Donovan McNabb-Philadelphia Eagles
2006-57% 18 TD/6 INT/2647 yds
2007-61% 5 TD/1 INT/ 805 yds

McNabb got off to a very slow start this season, but if last week is any indication, it looks like he's back on form. McNabb is one of the top quarterbacks of this decade and before he got injured last season he was single-handedly carrying the Eagles on his back. The numbers above for 2006 were acquired in only 10 games! If McNabb can stay healthy, watch out. Of course, based on the past few years, it's unlikely that he'll finish the season injury free.

4. Tony Romo-Dallas Cowboys
2006-65.3% 19 TD/13 INT/2903 yds
2007-58% 8 TD/2 INT/860 yds

Romo got off to a fantastic start last year, but finished it off with a mediocre final 4 games, culminated in the botched snap against Seattle in the playoffs. So this year, the big question was whether he could bounce back mentally. Clearly, he has definitely come back and is even better than he was during his golden-boy streak last year. I don't know if anyone has his ability to avoid pressure in the pocket. There were about 5 times in the Bears game that just made me go "Wow!" when he was able to dodge the blitz and make a play downfield. Plus it was amazing to see him convert approximately 743 third and long conversions. The Cowboys wouldn't have even sniffed the playoffs last year without him, and he's been playing this well so far without his #2 receiver, Terry Glenn. He's definitely fun to watch and he has a special confidence and charisma that is essential to be one of the top quarterbacks in the league. I know people will probably say that it's a homer pick for me to put him at #4, and they're probably right. But, at this point, there are few that I'd rather have going into a big game against a tough defense. And if he can bounce back from one of the most soul crushing moments in recent years then he can bounce back from anything. I really do think that when all is said and done, we're going to look at Romo as one of the best of this generation. Thank goodness that Bledsoe stunk it up last year or we'd never know about all this.

3. Carson Plamer-Cincinnati Bengals
2006-62.3% 28 TD/13 INT/4035 yds
2007-64% 9TD/4 INT/937 yds

Carson is definitely among the elite quarterbacks in the league right now. He puts up incredible stats and he is able to lead his team to victory. He also showed his ability to overcome adversity when he came back from injury to have a great year last year. He probably would have had more success on some other teams if he hadn't been signed to the Cincinnati Bail Bond Bengals. He has great arm-strength and great decision making abilities. We'll see if he's able to translate those abilities into championships in the next few years.

The Best of out Generation

1b. Tom Brady-New England Patriots
2006-61.8% 24 TD/12 INT/ 3529 yds
2007-79.5% 10TD/1 INT/887 yds

The fact is that Brady has never had very good receivers and yet he has always been able to put up great numbers and win games. This was especially seen last year when he had awful AWFUL receivers (you know it's bad when your best receiver is Reche Caldwell) and yet was still able to get to the AFC Championship. In fact, if Troy Brown hadn't run a wrong route on the last drive against the Colts, the Pats would have won and Brady would have destroyed the Bears to win his 4th Super Bowl, and Manning would still be known as the guy who couldn't win the big one. Now that the Pats picked up Donte Stallworth, Wes Welker, and a rejuvenated Randy Moss, we're finally seeing what Brady can do with quality receivers. Brady has been playing in-humanly this year and it looks like he's not even trying. With a destructive Brady at the helm, the Pats look like the 96 Bulls in their dominance. Brady is one of the best ever, and next to Joe Montana is possible the 2nd best clutch QB's ever. If you put a gun to my head then I say that Peyton is better, but if I have my choice then I say they're tied. If Brady can win his 4th Super Bowl in 7 years this season, then I'll have to give him back the sole #1 spot.

1a. Peyton Manning-Indianapolis Colts
2006-65% 31 TD/9 INT/4397 yds
2007-65.3% 5 TD/1 INT/873 yds

Peyton has put up the best numbers in the NFL for the past 6 seasons, but his critics had always said that he couldn't win the big game. It was a fair argument and was holding up until something happened in the Colts locker room at halftime in the AFC Championship. Peyton came out and mounted an amazing comeback, won the game, and went on to dismantle the Bears in the Super Bowl. Now I definitely have to put him up there with Brady. And since he's going to break all of Marino's and Favre's records in a 8 years, it's possible to say that Peyton could be known as THE greatest NFL quarterback ever. Right now, he's in a tight race with Brady for the best in the game right now. But if he can win the Super Bowl again with a Colts team that lost several key players over the off-season, then the Brady-Manning debate will be pretty much over. I'm excited to see how it all plays out.

Here We Go Again.....

2007-09-27T23:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I think it's time that I finally decided to start a new blog. Harding decided to block Xanga this year, so my old blog officially died. So, after a respite from blogging, I thought it was time to join the blogspot world and start writing again.

I'm really excited about writing again. I've got some exciting plans for this new blog. As well as telling about my life, I also want to start writing extensively about two of my passions: God and Sports. I've always dreamed of writing a book, and I think this could be practice for that, and I have also sort of dreamed about being a sports journalist/broadcaster, and I think it would be fun to write about that as well. Since this is the BEST time of the year in sports with college and NFL football heating up, and of course the baseball playoffs all throughout October, I have lots of material. With the Titans playing great, the Cowboys playing lights out, and the Red Sox in the playoffs, the next month might be fairly sports heavy, but I'll back off some after that.

My inspiration for the name of my blog: "Singing a New Song" comes from Psalm 40 which says in verses 2 and 3:

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,

out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the LORD.

God has blessed me so much, and has changed my heart, soul, and mind. He has lifted me up and I now sing a new song to him. Now, I don't want what I'm saying to sound cheesy, abstract, or silly. What I mean to say is that I want to be the kind of person that spreads God's joy, peace, and love to everyone I meet (key word: want. I'm not there yet). I want to sing a new song in my actions, words, and attitude. So, this blog is my humble attempt to share that song through my random thoughts and ideas. We'll see how it goes.