“There was not any big bust of shouting or fireworks, but a beautiful peace came over me that night. And a relief that I had stepped out and chosen the way that had been pointed out to me all those years.” (>> – [PDF])

“Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy,
She’ll beat you if she’s able.
No, the queen of hearts is always your best bet.
Now it seems to me, some fine things,
Have been laid upon your table.
But you only want the things that you can’t get.” (>>)

“Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quet place and get some rest.’ So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving reconized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw the large crowd he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.” (>>)

On a related note…

“Men come into the world without the God who was our deepest joy, our ecstacy. Aching for we know not what, we meet Eve’s daughters and we are history. She is the closest thing we’ve ever encountered, the pinnacle of creation, the very embodiment of God’s beauty and mystery and tenderness and allure. And what goes out to her is not just our longing for Eve, but our longing for God as well. A man without his true love, his life, his God, will find another. What better substitute than Eve’s daughters? Nothing else in creation even comes close.” (>>)

I really hate family “get-togethers.”

Thank God she didn’t puke in my car.

“We aren’t trying to be different… We’re trying to be ourselves.” (>>)

“There are no fomulas with God. The way in which God heals our wound is a deeply personal process. He is a person and he insists on working personally.” (>>)

I finally got around to buying a cookie jar (well, technically it’s an animal cracker jar) to hold miscellaneous networking supplies in the media office @ Apex. Say hello to our little friend as he takes a tour of his temporary habitat until moving into his permenant dwelling sometime this weekend: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

P.S. — Robin, just to torture you with curiosity… Your Christmas present(s) is/are in that brown mailer in #4. ::evil grin::

Affirmative Action Bake Sale.

Chirac needs a swift kick to the head.

Cool, albeit slightly depressing, background from tinweapon.com

Just found out I got accepted to UD…

“In some it is never lit,
straw and cinders smoking forever as they float through ghost-life,
they smother flames in fear,
and die from lack of heat.” (>>)

Best Buy has How To Start a Fire (and other Tooth and Nail CDs) for $8. Guess where I’m going after work…

You know how, when you were a kid and you made a wierd face, your mom would tell you that if you did that for long enough it would stay that way? I think that’s what happens to a lot of us. You BS enough people for long enough, and you just stay that way. It becomes a part of you to the point where you don’t know anything else.

“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your bothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.” (>>)

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only paths that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.” (>>)

“Ian, good luck in all you do in the future. You will do well in all aspects of life. Keep asking the hard questions, they make situations better in the long run. All my best, Mrs. Yokajty”

[Senior Year High School Yearbook]

“…but I’m waiting for God to show me what’s behind door #20.” ((>> – November 27th post))

Advanced tickets for The Passion are now on sale.

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata–of creatures that worked like machines–would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.”

“God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves his enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Good is either the great safety or the great danger–according to the way you react to it. And we have reacted the wrong way.” (>>)

Today’s used record store find: Worthless Pursuit of Things on the Earth by Chris Taylor. You can download the whole album from his website (here) and I highly suggest you at least get the title track.

I love that feeling you get for the first thirty minutes after buying power tools.

“I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil–this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.” (>>)

Damn, that boy is smart.

“Tofu is made from little baby seals.” (>>)