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europeans

jonathan — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 16:09:00 +0000

On my trip I met a wonderful french student that was travelling around the U.S. We stayed together for a day or two as a helped him get to his next destination. This gave us plenty of time to talk about all kinds of matters. It’s interesting to hear from someone “across the pond” as they say. I have to say that from my experience with him, it really seems that Europeans are a lot more sensible than us Americans are.
It really makes me want to move to Europe for at least a prolonged period maybe going to school or something. I would really savor the time because of the freshness of thought and clear headness that can be missing in America so much of the time.

Sometimes, maybe it’s because I live in Arkansas, I feel so backward compared to Europeans. In a lot of ways I still feel that we are the silly childish colony of Britian; trying to grow up. And since we’re big and immature all we know how to do is be a bully to the rest of the world.

political commercial

jonathan — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 15:30:00 +0000

So yesterday I heard two awful commercials both attacking each other. I haven’t heard them first hand; I very rarely ever hear political commercials first hand it may have something to do with living in Arkansas. They were played on NPR’s “all things considered.” It seems that any political commercial I ever hear, I am apalled at the level of direct attack they use. It very embarrassing to listen to such uncouth language. I hate partisan politics, and this is it at it’s worst.
The commercials were about supreme judge pick coming up. The most obvious thing about it is that democrats are getting themselves into something in the completely wrong way. They need to realize the the media even the including that so called “liberal biased” parts have put John Roberts in such a positive light ever since the story broke. The democrats have no chance of swinging anything with the decision; they are only digging a hole for themselves in the public eye. It’s really ashame because they probably have grounds to argue against the white house for holding documents, but it doesn’t matter when the media has already decided on it.
At any rate, it whole thing creates a wonderful smoke screen to issues that really matter…Oh you know like poverty, starvation, and war. But all the adminstration is going to do is put out issues out there that don’t matter; as to hide anything that matters and can cause real positive change.

musings from the road

jonathan — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 01:06:00 +0000

Well as an update I’m in Portland, OR sitting in a nice coffee shop. I’ve been on the road for almost a week now. It’s been nice to say the least; amazing views and some wonderful people. It’s been quit strange being so far away, but I’m think I’m starting to settle into a nice relaxed state of traveling jon.
Something that I’ve noticed which has been really sad is the lack of diversity. I feel this awful distaste in my mouth when I such inequality. The extreme far majority of people I have been seeing has been rich white people. Where are the dark skinned people of America? It’s sickening to think how we have marginalized so many people to this ugly out of the way places. They have been priced out of the beautiful places of the world into the dark dirty alleys of the country. Anyway I’m going to get off my soap box and exit back into the city to enjoy my elite wasp existance…arghh something has to change.

Interesting Disparities

jonathan — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 21:43:00 +0000

It has been very interesting to listen to how Londoners have reacted to the bombings last week. The interesting part is because of how it is in such stark contrast to how Americans react to such events.
The Londoners have seemed to take it in stride and seeing it as a criminal action which needs to be dealt with but through the path ways that have been setup for such crimes. They have been very civil about things and haven’t turned to reactionary tactics as the US has done.

Also it’s amazing how we as western cultural can be so amazed when something like a bombing happens in our nations; bombings like what happened in London happen everyday around the world with maybe a few columns in the newspaper buried somewhere in the back to tell about it. When something on this nature happens to us, we stop everything and rethink how everything, calling for strengthened homeland security. I think we are doing pretty good; a few isolated incidents here and there is nothing to fear when people in the middle east are dealing with bombings everyday. We really need to take a step back and really understand the safety and security we have. We shouldn’t be worried about our livelyhood except in the way our country continues to take away our freedoms.

Doube Standards

jonathan — Tue, 24 May 2005 17:36:00 +0000

Here’s an interesting article on the double standard that some Muslim countries hold when it comes to their Holy Book in comparison to other’s Holy Books. It’s an interesting editorial coming from the Wall Street Journal.

sad times

jonathan — Wed, 18 May 2005 02:17:00 +0000

So today I would have already left and have begun my training for the summer. It’s a time like right now that I realize the sadness that I have for not being able to work in Colorado this summer. It’s kind of like breaking up with a girl, you know it had to be this way but it still hurts. I was excited that I would at least be able to get out to camp this summer for a least a short period of time, but as things are looking now that’s probably not going to happen. Maybe that’s for the best; actually if that’s how it’s going to be, then I know that’s how God wants it to be.
I don’t understand how or why God does what he does. It’s definitely never the way I would have done things, but I guess that’s why I haven’t been able to create a universe yet. It’s hard enough for me to write a paper and not have too much red ink on it afterwards, let alone write the story of the universe.
I offically declared my major, philosophy, today. That seems like a big mile marker for me. I’ve made a bearing for my life, now it’s that point where I’m supposed to start walking towards it. I feel good about the decision though it seems like certain people with a vested interest in my life don’t feel the same way. So what do philosophers do? How did Plato, Socrates, Descartes, or Hume make a living? So even though I’ve set my compass for a certain path, I still don’t know what lies over that hill that they call an undergraduate degree.
I would ask God when I get to heaven, why did you have to make life so confusing; but I know the answer already. He would just kind of laugh, a warm laugh that a father gives his son, shaking his head and say:

“Now what fun would that have been, no one goes through a maze where you can see the other side from the beginning. That’s like driving through Kansas after you just left the mountains, it’s just not that satisfying (*just as a disclaimer, to all those kansanites, I really enjoy going through Kansas (*and I’m sure God does too), also David Lankford can confirm this from our drive together last summer.). And didn’t you learn anything from your dad, he was always saying…’hey don’t worry we’re on an adventure’ and I thought you loved adventures Jonathan? I was just trying to add some twists and turns to spice things up for you, you not appreciate it? I’ll tell you what Jonathan, you are just rather confusing to even me sometimes.”

So to all you Ute Trail guides, you better appreciate every second of this summer because it may be the last time you get to use the hobbie or move rocks or stain a house in STINKING COLORADO!

how much is it worth to you?

jonathan — Sun, 15 May 2005 04:14:00 +0000

So I listen to a lot of music, especially live shows. Something that is always so amazing about going to a show or even listening to a recording of one is how people get so excited and aren’t afraid to show it.
Why is that so lacking when we come to church. I go to a pretty modern (I mean a pretty post-modern) church; it has all the hip music the kids are listening to these days, the nice mood lighting, it even does crazy stuff like have canvas and paint to draw on sometimes. This is all done they say to create an atmosphere where you can feel comfortable and be able to relate with and also be able to express worship in many different and expressive ways. But that seems to be the problem, people don’t express it; I would almost be so bold as to say they don’t have anything to express, but I won’t say that as in giving them the benefit of the doubt.

So what’s the problem, because this goes way beyond any style of music or whatever. Christians get more excited talking about the new little gadget they got (that’s supposed to revolutionize their life, stream lining everything…even though they spent all weekend getting it work correctly) or the ‘great’ game they saw yesterday (see previous post). I get so frustrated seeing the world or even Christians doing a better job worshipping things of the world more than us Christians do at worshipping God. *Not to get off into Piper theology or anything but it’s pretty clear that God deserves our praise way more than any other thing. I’m not saying things are bad and we shouldn’t enjoy them; what I’m saying is we are missing the train in our worship. We have kicked God off the top, and but all kinds of other things in it’s place.

I wish I had some great answer to what I should do for this problem, because I definitely feel like I’m in this boat and the boat is definitely sinking. I just know that I’m sick and I see a lot of other people, to be a lumper I would say the whole America Christian church (as I don’t know enough close hand experience with the foreign branches of the body, though from what I hear it’s doing far better than American churches.). I pray that God would make us really feel the pain so that we could realize how grave a problem we are lying in, so we may come together and resolve this problem and return to the true undivided worship of our Lord.

i just don’t understand sometimes

jonathan — Sun, 15 May 2005 03:58:00 +0000

I noticed some very interesting observations and/or facts this weekend. One of the observations was sparked by a news broadcast I heard on NPR yesterday afternoon.
I didn’t catch the beginning of the story so I don’t really know what was going on. But from my understanding someone is buying part of the team and something is happening involving soccer. I don’t really care much, and it really doesn’t matter too much for my story; but if you must know the story in full you should be able to find it at www.npr.org.
The part of the story that really caught my attention was how the people had come together so quickly and argently about the issue. The fans were up in arms about this deal that was about to happen; they were threatening to boycott the team, not buying tickets or even merchandise. I think they even put together some type of protest rally or something.
I was completely stunned by this; how is it that some Americans can gather so quickly for something to trival in nature, but when it comes to gathering together to protest the horrible acts that are done by our government and others they are completely silent. Even the so called fundamental Christian movement that is sweeping(?) the nation so loves to bash pro-choice or as they would say pro-murder is completely silent about the amount of death to children everyday because of lack of nutrition.
I could go on but I’ll leave this somewhat short; basically I just don’t understand the world I live in sometimes. When the Bible talks about us being strangers to this land, it makes a lot of sense, and oddly enough is kind of comforting to me.

feeling of obligation

jonathan — Sun, 15 May 2005 03:53:00 +0000

Well i feel like i should tell everyone, if you haven’t heard, that I’ve decided not to move to Colorado and go to school. I don’t really want to go into the details of the decision right now, but basically there were a lot of things against it and it felt like the best decision was to stay. So I’ll be in Fayetteville for most of the summer, hopefully spending most weekends under the stars, going to summer school the first half and traveling around the states the second half.

Gleanings in Joshua

jonathan — Tue, 10 May 2005 16:15:00 +0000

Here’s a link to a wonderful couple of quotes from the introduction to “Gleanings in Joshua”, a book I’m not familar with but sounds really good. It’s some very heart felt remarks about our forgetfulness of our need to be faithful in contrast to our unbalanced love for the grace of God. I highly recommend it; it’s really short. I don’t know anything about this book, but if it’s anything like these quotes, I might just have to read it.

http://www.dmobley.com/archives/2005/05/a_couple_quotes_1.html