Comment to Will's post...

I would definitely say that your response helps to answer that question, it is one that I have kind of put on the back burner, but one that I always have trouble with and that I think more than anything keeps me from growing and seeking more is when I think about blessings/answered prayers etc...Because by no means can I not say that God has blessed me at times when I have asked or needed it, and that is actually where I struggle, He has blessed me so much at times when I have needed it and asked for it I can't accept it. Its so hard for me to hear things like, "God kept the rain back for an extra hour so we can have this skate show or picnic fundraiser He must have been looking out for us" or I needed an my boss to let me off so that I can go to this show or on this trip and when he did God blessed me with it, when I know that terrible things are happening to people all around the world and hard situations are prevalent for so many people it is hard for me to accept the fact that God is going to bless us middle class white Christians from some rain for an hour or a day off of work when some girl is getting abused by her dad or someone is starving and cold by fault of neglectful parents or war, but that isnt to say that that isn't the case, I just have a hard to coming to grips again with thinking that and accepting that God is blessing me with things that don't seem as crucial as other peoples situations.

angry v. femine-side G-d.

"God is the same God as yesterday today and tomarrow"
Yet, I struggle with this idea so much, seeing God in the Old and New Testaments to be the same.
With one, Sin seems to have much more devestating results, in the other, sin is described by some people to "not offend God" or even, "not seperate us from God."
Ot: Quick tempered and not afraid to use violence when necessary to obtain land for His 'chosen people.' Sin seems to have immediate and sometimes deadly results.
- Go and take Jericho.
- You sinned... well then, we're going to take you outside, set you and your familly on fire and throw stones at you till you die.
Nt: Grace abounds and sin seems to play a less retributive role in our lives.
I would really benefit from all of your thoughts on this idea.

green, gold, and brown

oh gosh, i love this weather. I know it is supposedly trite to talk about the weather. Sometimes I apologize to people in conversation and swear I'm not desperatly searching for something to say and out of a lack for anything... vocally observe the obvious.
"The sun is out and it is shiny."
"You are correct"
But, i was watching the leaves fall off their limbs and float across the street as i was driving and I thanked God on how every season has something unique and poetic and beautiful about it, no matter what that is. The green of summer, the gold of fall, the birth of spring, the white of winter. sometimes in winter, the cold strangles all plant life and kills the grass and the leaves and everything looks brown and barren but even so... there is so much beauty theirin that nourishes my soul. God said it was "good" for some reason apparently. It's been said to me that God said that man was 'good', but when you look at generation God actually steps back and seems please by creation in entirety. So, when I say "The weather is nice out today." I'm probably insinuating something much more heart felt than it is commonly interpreted to be.
Maybe we should invent some new small talk conversations... "What's your favorite color?" only lasts up to one word, thus only getting me past about .32000015 seconds worth of awkwardness.
"Do you fear death?" Maybe that one is a better go, eh?

Ahh the Weather

Beautiful day today. I was eating breakfast in the breakfast/lunch restaurant that Rachel works at ( which is the cutest little place in downtown covington) where I sit at the bar and order, what has become my usual of two eggs scrambled, potatoes and toast with a cup of coffe, and read the paper. I was reading the "Living" portion, which the paper also includes the Times Picayune out of NO and there is the New Orleans film festival going on this week so we are going to go across the lake tonight and watch a John Cusac film calle'Grace is Gone', I was kind of bumed because last night a Vince Vaugn film played and turns out he was in attendance. So I am pretty stoke about that tonight, also in covington they have this thing going on that they do every year called "Fall for Art" where the open up all the gallleries downtown, which are all on one street and there are about 8 of them and they are really nice on top of that, and they have food and drinks and the community comes out and strolls around downtown. A pretty nifty deal I think. Also there was a rally this morning for Bobby J for govenor , where all of the elected officials in the area who endorsed him did so, which happened to be one block down the street from the restaurant so I just walked on over and caught that, I really honestly hope he wins because our state desperately needs him.

..oh and I just finished my training at Macaroni Grill haha so now I just have to pass a test and I will officially be a server

hope everyone has a beautiful day...au revoir

Job Hunt

So the teaching thing didn't really work out so well for me. I am now living in Mandeville/Covington at Rachels house until I find a job. I have some good leads, but I decided that the smart thing to do is to just get a job until I find a more permanant like job, because it could take several weeks or even a month. I have a second interview today at Macaroni Grill for a server position, hopefully it will work out. One of the most promising leads for a job job is wit mary anns dads insurance company, but it could be until january until they do more hiring, so waiting tables seems like a viable thing until that happens if it does. At first I was kind of freaking out about the whole thing, like most guys would, but I think I am learning alot of valuable lessons. The first lesson is conditioning myself to be happy where I am, not thinking that I have to be in some crazy cool city immediately around a bunhc of cool people, but instead to make this the coolest town ever ( which it actually is pretty incredible as you will see). And making community here, finding people here to build relationships with, because surely there are other people our age here that are thinking the same thing. Me Rachel and Mary Ann are starting something every monday night that is kind of like continuing education where we are going to self teach ourselves in different areas such as literature and art and foriegn language. Needless to say I am pretty excited about that. Also there is an awesome bike trail called the trace that goes from the lake front( lake pontchatrain) to downtown covington and it goes right by her house and all total it would probably take a good two hours to bike the whole thing, and she lives in about the middle of it so we have been biking lately and it is so refreshing. Every saturday there is a a market down by the lake front and we biked over there and walked around this past weekend. And the coolest thing happened for our spiritual journey yetsterday. About a year ago when I started looking into the whole emergent church thing I had been connected to a guy out of new orleans who was also wanting to start an emergent cohort in louisiana but since we were in different places we just corresponded through emails for a while, and yesterday after church me and rachel were talking about different churches and places we could try out as far as getting involved and she said that her old youth pastor used to go to Imago Dei in Portland for a while and loved it but was part of a church planting/leadership organization and felt compelled to start more like it and so he moved to new orleans and started something there, and so we were both talking about this guy we knew in new orleans who we should contact to see what they were doing there and if it would be something we would want to get involved with so I went to emergent's website to see if there was something in new orleans and two guys names came up and I asked rachel what her old pastors name was and it was him and then I noticed his email address and it looked familiar so I checked my old emails and it was the same guy I was corresponding with a year ago, how incredible and coincidental is that, we were blown away nonetheless. So I emailed the guy last night and we have been emailed back and forth some today and we are going to go thursday to new orleans to sit down with them and check out their community, it is called "Communitas New Orleans" it looks really neat and promising and most importantly encouraging that there could be some bright potential for spiritual growth here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcXb9lAVko0

I hope all is well and we are shooting for possibly the 3rd weekend of this month to make a trip to Ruston. Much love.