The Clock Doesn't Love You

Happy Birthday, James!

On an unrelated topic, wtf did they do to Farmville? You can't even buy a goddamn chicken anymore.

These are the vows you make when you become a member of a PCA church:

"1. Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of
God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save
in His sovereign mercy?

"2. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God,
and Savior of sinners, and do you receive and rest upon Him
alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel?

"3. Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon
the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as
becomes the followers of Christ?

"4. Do you promise to support the Church in its worship and
work to the best of your ability?

"5. Do you submit yourselves to the government and discipline
of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace?"

Thinking about the last one...

"5. Do you submit yourselves to the government and discipline
of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace?"

I did submit myself to the government and discipline of the Church, and I did so willingly. I completely understood that the way I'm living my life is contrary to the way a Christian should be; I mean, if me two or three years ago had heard about me now, he'd be sad, suspicious, and maybe a little jealous. I think the way I'm living my life is self-serving and introverted to the point of being ingrown.

But the second part of the question is what really puts me off now.

I don't think the Church has an extraordinary record of purity or peace. The gospel has been spread peacefully and with the sword, like every other major religion. Islam was spread by Sufi wanderers, converting followers with joyous praise for Allah. Buddhism was spread by Ashoka, an Indian prince, and the Kushan people through the violence; Buddhist monasteries in China hoarded wealth, weakened the state, and sometimes hangouts for prostitutes and indolence instead of places of meditation and enlightenment. Christianity is no different; in some places and times, it's been an tyrant, in others, a saint.

I don't think Christianity is any worse than any other religion; I just don't think it's better.

So, a couple months back, Jason from RUF catches me in the cafeteria and tells me that the church is thinking about disciplining me. Sounds pretty reasonable to me, considering I haven't been attending church regularly for about a year and I don't think I believe anymore.

I talk with my pastor in a Pita Pit about it, tell him what I think, and he tells me he agrees with my complaints with the Bible. He tells me that where I am spiritually, he doesn't think it would be a good idea to go back to my church in particular, but tells me there's real power and peace in God and His Way.

A few weeks later, I get a letter from my church saying there's going to be a disciplinary hearing for me at the next session meeting, with a stated charge of fornication with my girlfriend. This comes as a surprise to me, mostly because we're virgins, and planning on staying that way until marriage.

Soooooooooo... I worry a lot about the hearing and so forth. My pastor ends up being the one driving me to the hearing. It doesn't take place in the pastor's office, but in the basement. The elders and one of the deacons arrive, laughing and joking to each other. We pray, have a brief devotional, and then address the charges. One of the elders looks around for the formal charge, can't find it, but I thankfully had brought all the papers they had given me.

They read the charge. I tell them that yes, we're cohabiting; no, we're not fornication; yes, I'm pretty much worthy of church discipline, but no, not for the stated charge.

They discuss. They apologize for the unfounded charge. They allow me to withdraw my church membership without any more process. They ask me to think more about the faith and not abandon it, and offer financial assistance for my girlfriend and I if we wanted to live apart until marriage.

So not quite the excommunication I imagined.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Last night, I had a dream that I was at my parents house. It was around Thanksgiving, and all of my brothers were home. Everyone's getting stuff ready for a delicious dinner. My dad's cellphone rings, I pick up, and it's a person conducting some sort of survey. I feel sorry for them as my job is pretty much the same, and I go upstairs to take the call as it's too noisy downstairs.

Somehow, the topic changes and the woman starts quoting the Bible at me, and I angrily reach for a Bible to respond to her. Not finding the verse I wanted, I flipped to the back for the index, but there were just pages and pages of advertisements instead.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

That's about it.

Brb excommunication.

I'm paying bills that I don't owe
Debts that settled long ago
Time on my knees for felonies
That aren't even misdemeanors

Hell, I'm in triple jeopardy by now
Go to trial, deny all charges
The same courtroom scene every time

I wake up
The flowers bloom too soon
One month till the execution,
Pass in a night

I will not repent of what is not sin

I need to post in this more often.

I want to write. I have ideas. I just need to put them down on paper. / internet.

I like brainstorming stories with other people. Who wants to brainstorm?

James told me a while ago that Neil Gaiman supposedly writes 400 words a day, which seems like a good goal to aim for. That's about a page and a third double spaced. You could write almost 500 pages in a year doing that. After you edit it down, that's a good novel.

That'll probably me my goal for the summer. 400 words a day on any topic.

Music means so little to me now. It's bizarre. I used to base most of my life on the music I listened to. I cataloged time, dates, seasons, emotions, and people by songs and albums.

Now, I barely listen to music. I bought a CD a week or so ago (The Best of Electric Light Orchestra) to try to rekindle my musical juices. I still haven't finished it. The last three albums to have done anything for me have been VNV Nation - Of Faith, Power, and Glory; Derek Webb - Stockholm Syndrome; and The Real Tuesday Weld - London Book of the Dead, but all of those were early last semester. I'm not even doing my radio show, Doom and Cookies, this semester.

Is it a maturity thing? Was music just my way of dealing with things I didn't understand, and now I've replaced it with something else? I guess a fair bit of why I enjoyed music was because it helped me through loneliness, boredom, and depression, none of which I really face frequently anymore.

- - - - - - - - - -

Another thing I wanted to talk about: I don't believe in Alaska anymore.

I came to this realization one day after Biotechnology Regulation, when I was listening to my professor give her views on politics. She's pretty moderate and intelligent, so it was an interesting discussion.

Out of nowhere, she took a hard turn left and started talking about how the problem with America is we spend too much on military power, should stop drilling for oil,and invest in renewable energy.

I started parroting my conservative stance about how we should build more oil refineries and drill for oil in Alaska, and she got very upset and told me I should ask the people in Alaska what happened to their permafrost, globalwarmingfloodingcataclysmpolarbearsraaaaawr.

In a slightly related story, Ariane and I saw "The Fourth Kind" a movie that claimed in its ads it was based on a true story [it's complete bullshit, as we shall see) about a psychiatrist investigating sleep disorders in Nome, Alaska. I thought it was mostly a well-done movie, but made a few major mistakes that led me to disbelieve its credibility.

The movie displays Nome, Alaska as sprawled throughout a valley between majestic mountain ranges covered in rich, pine forests. A resident of Nome, Alaska, indigent about the movie portraying Nome as a place where people constantly getting anally probed and mind-wiped by aliens, posted a picture of Nome. It's a huddled little cluster of buildings in a plain of snow.

Hearing my professor talk about the (supposed) widespread devastation of Alaska made me think, along with my gullibility about the nature of Nome, I realized: I don't know anything about Alaska. I've never been there, and from what I've researched about Alaska, it's a pretty big and varied place. Everything I've ever been told about Alaska, I've automatically believed because I had no experience about Alaska. For all I know, Alaska is inhabited solely by giant purple cows that subsist entirely on wind power produced by generators in their ears.

All the information I have ever been given on Alaska is conflicting. Maybe there is widespread flooding and global warming. Maybe it's caused by the heat of all that repeated anal probing. I don't know.

And until I really can find reliable information, I just won't believe in Alaska.

-LSmaug

Have posted anything in a damn while.

Here's some dreams I've been having!

= = = = =

There was a long part of the dream that was mostly unimportant.

I was sleeping on a little wooden ledge jutting maybe a foot and a half out of a building. It overlooked a trench about twenty feet deep and fifty feet wide. The ground on the other side was about even with the wooden shelf. I had been given several other choices of where to sleep, but they all looked suspect.

During the night, it had rained, and filled the pit with murky brown water. Most of the other spots I could have slept were now submerged or washed away, and I sensed a vague satisfaction in my choice.

I picked up what few possessions I had, and started side-stepping along the platform, but even this felt like I was going to fall into the pit and drown, so I lowered myself into the pool so I could grab onto the platform.

My brother James appear on the other side of the river and started saying things to me. I should go ahead and say my brother James is someone I've looked up to and always respected. What he was saying was dark, accusatory, and disturbing.

The words I remember him saying at the end were, "What you believe in will destroy you, and what you trust in will be your undoing."

Instantly, I knew he most immediately was referring to the platform, which I was depending on so much. The platform violently detached itself from the house, flinging me into the air. I remember thinking as I was falling that if I landed in the water, I was going to drown, but if I made it to land, the fall would probably kill me.

"What you believe in will destroy you, and what you trust in will be your undoing."

It seemed like the deepest thought I've ever had in my life.

= = = = = =

I had a dream where I brutally murdered my whole family with nothing

but a rock and videotaped it. I watched the videotape over and over

again, trying to decide how to dispose of the evidence.

= = = = = = = = =

I had a dream I was at a college bookstore with a few friends and had

to buy an "inspirational" book with bright photographs with little

helpful phrases scrawled across them for a religious studies class,

because it had spawned an actual religion. The dream then transformed

into a movie about my hatred for the book, superimposing the pictures

of fireworks with captions like "Your dreams can come true!" over my

angst. A montage started with Marilyn Manson's version of "Personal

Jesus." It was bitchin'.

= = = = = = = = =

I had a dream that my rats were dirty and I was trying to clean them

with milk and tomato sauce. A song started playing, supposedly by Say

Anything.

It opened with an old Jewish woman explaining a [completely untrue in

real life] tradition that Jewish men would save their last, dirtiest

penny from a paycheck to buy a hooker with.

My Black Penny
By My Subconscious Interpretation of Say Anything

You may have heard, I've been saving my
Last penny for a lady of the night
But I've been keeping myself inside of me
While my woman collects black pennies on the street

[funky breakdown]

Well, I've still got
My love-price
Well, I've still got
My penny for a whore
But you've got them
From every guy in town

[interlude]

[spoken as an announcer]

I'm sure everyone here knows someone who's "broken hearted" every other

day. Let's have a brief rundown of our favorite crushed crushes!

Lindsey can't understand
Why her men
Are always bland

Well, she get's them at the corner
Of fifth and ninth
Where the lawyers and attorneys
Always drive

Lindsey don't come crying to me
When they buy you off
With another black penny

[some other girl I don't remember]

Suzy never disappoints
If you're looking for alcohol
Sex or a joint

But her bed isn't working
She wants it to be
A flytrap for men
And a target for money

So she cries and complains
About her heart's pains
Can't believe that it's true
That her whiskey and booze
Are seen as a fee
They're her black penny

Oh, Lindsey, don't you see
They're buying you off
With a black penny

Oh, Suzy, don't blame me
You're just buying them off
With a black penny

But I'm safe from all that
I've been carefully
Biding my time
With my black penny

= = = = = =

You've gotta admit, it sounds like something Say Anything would write.

A few Say Anything links

Every Man has a Molly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwjfRSUme3U

Alive with the Glory of Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd2lYLFr7x4

However, the music sound more like funk, a la the Virgins

Teen Lovers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3HNs1h9U6g

-LSmaug

One thing that has always fascinated and irked me is the way that letters and numbers look together. For example, names, and my own name. I don't like the way my name sounds too much, but I like the arrangement and combination of the letters. Also, my birthday, 8/27, I enjoy. Beyond the fact that it's 2x2x2 and 3x3x3, I like the rise and fall of 8 down to 2, then back up to 7. The numbers look comfortable beside each other. They're different enough to look interesting, but not so strange as to be awkward.

I tend to mix every conceivable sense into my perception. For instance, I integrate color into those numbers. 8 is a rich blue, an indigo, 2 is a bright red, and 7 is a calm green.

I hate it when my writing contains mostly i's. Like that last sentence. I enjoy undulating through o's and u's, masticating an "a", but e's are even, a balancing sort of vowel. You put it on the end of words like "bake," "cone," "tune," and "fine" to soften the strength of the rest of the word.

Sigh.

Not what I meant to talk about at all.

Ariane and I are doing well. October 5th makes a year together. I can't tell whether it feels like all of my life or about a week.

Doom and Cookies is back, Wednesday nights/Thursday mornings at 1am. I need new music.

Dungeons and Dragons twice a week. Jake's campaign is enjoyable; I love playing a rogue, even though I dislike not having spells. Hell, "bluff" practically IS a spell, if you use it enough. My Dragon campaign is in danger. I have to get the players working like a party soon, or it's gonna fall apart. If I can run a campaign with 8 people in it, I will know I am turning into better DM.

Work is easy, but I've been calling in way too much from sickness. I hope they don't fire me.

Parthenon started out easy, and then life happened. I need to get back on that.

Talking to parents again in one form or another. Tension, yes. But not nearly as much as there has been in the past.

Fought last night. I am so out of practice. I was taking hits and blocking instead of dodging, and I'm paying for it today.

Meeting tons of new people, some of whom I despise, some of whom I hope to be friends with for the rest of my life.

Food time with new friends.

-LSmaug

So, for one of my online classes, we discussed if we should celebrate Columbus day. I got sick of so much white guilt, so I posted this as one of my responses:

"I think feeling guilt because of violence is an innovation of the 21st century.

"War, and the advancement of culture by the sword, has been a part of human history since the Egyptians and the Babylonians. The reason main reason that large civilizations exist is because at some point or another, a king, emperor, or warlord conquered and enslaved most of the population of another culture.

"We tend to shake our heads in disgust at the Europeans who conquered native races, but what were the native races doing before Europeans conquered them?

"The Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas were powerful, advanced cultures because they had already captured and enslaved a large majority of the peoples surrounding themselves. All three were warlike and violent peoples, and in fact, the Incas were involved in a civil war when the Spanish arrived, the Mayans had degenerated into warring city-states, and Cortes easily found enemies of the Aztecs to ally with to overthrow them.

"Conquering another culture to gain access to their resources is a part of history. 'Total war' and fighting for ideals has caused far more harm than simple monarchies battling for power, but I digress."

-LSmaug

PS: Today is my birthday. It is also a minor Roman festival, the date of the first signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact (a completely failed treaty that attempted to end war), the day Moldova declared it's independence from the USSR, and the date of launch of Mariner 2 (an expedition to Venus).