The First British Lutheran Blog Ever

It was very ironic that my parents named me Christopher, it being a nice name and all, (and I think it was partly because I most definitely didn't look like a Sri Lankan name would suit me, being a very light-skinned baby with a western-ish face after my dad), without realizing what the name meant (derived from the Greek Christophoros, meaning 'Christ-bearer/carrier'). Having no Christian instruction, followed by a several years of pretty negative experience of some sort of liberal religion under the name of Christianity, as a result of which I ended up experimenting with and getting into the occult, and being thoroughly opposed to what I saw as Christianity, the least likely thing in the world for me to be was a "Christ-bearer".

But we all know how that went. (I think pretty much all my readers know about that now, but just in case, I thought I'd bother to actually link it) Or well, you know who I am today.

It's a long held tradition in capoeira that the instructor gives his students nicknames appropriate to them. I'm not sure if it was because of my build, or my Brazilian-jujitsu-inspired aggression when playing in the roda, that I got the name "Todo Duro" which means "all hard/tough". But I think I've had that image for a while. Most definitely during my time in the occult, since I didn't smile for a year or so. Also, I never developed any eloquent "nice-ness" in my speech. Sometimes, I'm just looking for something to say, and I pause, try to find the right words to put it in the most gentle way possible, then say it... then think "Shit! That sounds even worse!" and try to correct myself... which makes a bad impression much worse. Yeah, I have a way with words. I'm honest, though... really honest. In university, all of those people who became my friends in the second year said they were afraid of me in the first. I was one of the few people who argued with lecturers and didn't prance around in calling crap, crap, or basically "calling a thing what it is". I'm probably the only one my university has ever seen who when asked my estimation of the "Jesus Seminar", responded, "well... the phrase 'crack-smoking liberals' comes to mind". And now that I've re-entered the martial arts, I guess it's easy for people to see me as violent. I know the weaknesses of the human body very well, what's needed to stun, maim, or kill, etc. I'm not squeamish at all. I don't talk about that unless the topic is martial arts and self-defence, but still... I think some people are shocked at what I know and the apparent ease and cold objectivity I have in talking about it. All this combined easy for people to see me as some cold-hearted hardass... and I've had my fair share of people who have treated me as such... and actually, the usually "nice" people are often the ones who take it as their sincere and true fight for whats right to bring down such obvious bad guys such as me, using cruel means, since obviously bad guys don't respond to direct and honest discussion.

Enough explanation/rambling.

But you know, I'm not Todo Duro in who I am. Sure, I've had plenty of hurt, stress, and trauma in my life, which has hardened me and makes me more difficult to break under pressure. But I'm not this tough guy some people assume me to be. As blog readers, you've seen the concerns and weaknesses that go on in my head and heart... things that most people either don't know about or find awkward to talk about.

Today, I saw my 19-year old baby brother surrounded by saline, pathedin, respirator, blood-collection, and catheter tubes, with his body temperature low, and his neck and shoulder muscle spasming as his body was in a form of shock, having had his ribcage cut open, his heart stopped for an hour or two, lifted out, cut open, and then put back in and sown up again. His tongue was being pressed between his teeth and the respiratory tube and his eyes lay just less than half open. He looked like he had been run over by a truck. I wanted to hug him, which despite me being 21 and him 19, is still an everyday occurance, but knew I couldn't. I know he's fragile and I wanted to protect him, and it just felt shocking and wrong that he should be so hurt now. I knew he was in a better position than he was before the surgery, yet it still looked and felt unnatural and wrong. I didn't cry, but came close to. Toughness really is just an act that I just get better at the older I get.

And on another topic, I was thinking about this poem written by Catallus the other day. While my situation went nowhere near as complicated or as involved as his, and I would use a gentle "iterem tui ipsius facias per vitam" rather than language as harsh as "scelesta, vae te!" (which sounds pretty un-loving and immature, but should probably be attributed to to his desperation at the situation he found himself in), I think I can actually understand some of what he means. (There is a reason I haven't translated it here, so if only John D can read this, so be it):

miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,
et quod vides perisse, perditum ducas.
fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles,
cum ventitabas quo puella ducebat
amata nobis quantum amabitur nulla;
ibi illa multa cum iocosa fiebant
quae tu volebas nec puella nolebat;
fulsere vere candidi tibi soles,
nunc iam illa non vult: tu quoque impotens noli,
nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser vive,
sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura.
vale, puella. iam Catullus obdurat,
nec te requiret nec rogabit invitam.
at tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla.
scelesta, vae te, quae tibi manet vita?
quis nunc te adibit? cui videberis bella?
quem nunc amabis? cuius esse diceris?
quem basiabis? cui labella mordebis?
at tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.

Yet, even for Catullus, toughness really was just an act that he just get better at the older he got.

I look forward to when the burden of having to "destinatus obdura" ("endure toughly") and being "Todo Duro" ends. It won't be in this life, during which my burden may increase or decrease as time goes by, but in the next. There's something fundamentally wrong in the world in that our hearts and rationality are so confused and in conflict. I know "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9), so we have to go with our head over our heart often, but the heart wasn't meant to be deceitful or wicked in God's original design. But someday, there will be no more conflict, in the world, or within ourselves. Like Peter, I'll be able to put down my sword at last. And I will no longer have to fight anyone or anything. I have that hope, that promise, in Christ... and I cling to it passionately, as if it was my only real hope. Because it is.

... and I look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the age to come.
Amen.

They're halfway through Dylan's operation. You know, you can plan to make yourself useful - I planned on learning a bit of Portuguese this morning to keep my mind occupied - but it's tough to put anything in your head. Anxiousness really is like paralysis. For the first time since it was formed in our mother's womb, Dylan's heart has stopped beating while they operate. Machines are sustaining his cardiovascular and repsiratory functions.

Uhh... Can't keep a train of thought running. I'll blog later today or something.

I can speak and write English quite eloquently. I simply choose not to do so a lot of the time. As I'd say to my close circle of friends: Meh, my readers, meh.

Anyways, I got some really great news yesterday. I finally got my degree classification: First Class Honours! :) There's more and even better details with that, but I'm not officially supposed to know myself for another week or two so I'm not exactly gonna put those details on my blog just yet.

Theresa asked me in my previous post what I plan on doing now that I'm not going to seminary. I was thinking of just getting a 9-5 office job somewhere, then I re-made my CV and thought, "perhaps I should aim a little higher" and now after speaking with my boss at work, I'm planning on training up to store manager level in the company, if they'll have me. I have plenty of support from the management at the store I work at the moment, and it's something where there would always be further promotion prospects if I chose to pursue and work my way up to them. It's not as mundane as working in just one department like I do now, and also it's much more engaging so I think I'll feel useful in such a role.

Dylan goes into hospital again today, with the operation to fix his mitral valve tomorrow. I've been pretty much immediately shredding every emotional response that's come into my head for the past week and a bit and I know it's a fairly routine op, so it's come as no suprise that I don't feel worried right now.

"...into your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things..."

Where to start...

This blog really has over the last year or so become less like an impersonal, objective discussion of theological and life issues, and more like a open diary/life report/soap opera of my life. My readership numbers have actually increased from this, but that's not why I'm being so open. A friend and I on Friday night were discussing the merits and dangers of my openness. As for the question, "Why am I being so explicit, not only in real life situations but on the net?" I've only got half an answer... in three parts. Firstly, in the style of fellow blogger Bunnie Diehl, if you don't like it, no one is forcing you to read it. Secondly, for the past... 6 months or so, I've become something of a mystic... not in a wishy-washy sense, but simply seeing and seeking a coherent unity between how I see God, people, the Gospel, romance, friendships, and life in general. It's really been the beginning of the end of artificial compartmentalisation for me. (I'm even tempted to at least keep in the realm of possibility the 'Christian hedonist' statement that "humans like sex so much, because it's a lot like God"). And thirdly, I don't know... I really don't know. But part of me is convinced that seeing and tasting and thinking and feeling through every experience in life for all that it is, somehow works out for the best. I get told things ranging from "I'm like you deep down but wouldn't admit it" to "you should have been born a woman... thinking so much about the future, etc." I don't care what people think, just so long as they don't presume to know everything about me. Despite my openness, there's still much that hasn't been said. If there was no mystery about me, then I would either have ceased to be a human being, or you would be God.



I often start writing posts, then stop.

Sometimes they're taken up again, sometimes they're never touched again.

One thing I was about to publish was on the deniability of the past. You know, I've done a lot of travelling in my life. My first paid job was actually in New York, in the summer of 2002, when I was 18. I worked on a youth ministry team for teenagers and it was one of the best summers of my life. I also returned the next summer and worked in a different capacity. Both times, I made a lot of good and close friends, experienced things I've never done before, become an "adopted big brother" to some really great kids... yet if it weren't for the photographic evidence of my being there, sometimes, it feels like it was just a dream. Going back even further, the most dangerous and significant years of my life sometimes feel like... someone else's story. No one who has met me in recent years guessed that I ever went through anything like that. And of the closest friends who I see and talk to almost every day, only one of them has read that to have any idea of my past at all. It's strange how people say they dream about the future. The past often seems just as distant and dreamlike to me. I feel like I occupy just this point in time I happen to be, shaped, being shaped, and continuing to be shaped, by the hand of God. Jesus' words, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:34) seem to have an extra dimension to them I had not noticed before.

I once thought I knew who I am, and what I wanted. The events of the past few months have convinced me otherwise. I haven't returned to being who I was before, but I'm becoming someone else. Nothing is the same now. I don't know much at all. I, for a long time, knew I was, but now I know that I'm even more so an expert in being wrong. I have no idea who or what I'll be. I decided not to go to seminary right now, partly because I did not desire it any longer. Despite that bringing disappointment to some people who had expected me to go, I think coming to that conclusion is progress in knowing myself and what I'm supposed to be in this world, while having one foot in the next. In this sense, despite my coping mechanism feeling annoyingly artificial to me, how I felt might not have been as meaningless as I thought it was, and now that I'm no longer who I was just over a week ago to be feeling what I was, I'm sure I've got some lessons I'll be unpacking and learning for a long time. Don't ask me to tell you what they are because I don't think I know myself yet.

Long live being clueless!
And incoherent!

Disclaimer: If you don't understand any of this, I probably don't either.

It really isn't. People feel the way I feel all the time... like they've fallen for someone in a way that they've never fallen for someone before. I care too much. I hope too much. I still held onto a thought of "well, maybe in 5 years from now things will be different". I over-analyze and get concerned too easily. The fact that I got so worried about an out-of-context text-message accidently sent to her today, which could have easily come across as bitter and spiteful, rather than an attempt to not try to fix everything like I had done in the past, just served to demonstrate the very thing I was trying not to do. The greater part of me wishes this would work out like Rob and Devona's story. For some reason, I was convinced that just because it felt and seemed so different than immature crushes I had earlier in my life, that it was worthy to be treated differently. I tried to find a middle ground between "giving up" and "hoping too much". I thought I found it for a while. But then when you can just be spending ordinary time with someone and randomly when you see her smile, you think, "your smile feels like life", and such a phrase actually makes sense to you... it's tough to stay on that middle ground. I can't hope in "love conquers all". (For the record, that's only been strictly true once). What I felt and feel IS different from immature crushes I've had in the past, but I've finally realized that it must be treated the same way: Cold, hard denial, and bludgeoning to death with the truth. She doesn't want to occupy such a treasured place in my heart, so I cannot let these thoughts and feelings continue. No more hoping, no more "maybe in the future...". Just the cold hard fact that this has always been, is, and always will be, a one-sided thing. Like I said to one of my friends, you don't ever really get over someone you feel like this about. You just change into a person who doesn't find so much joy and happiness from and have so much care for that person. It's a pretty monumental change which will take time, not just a switch you can turn off. Laura will always be a good friend to me. I just won't see in her what I see in her now. I feel like life's ordered me to pluck out my own eyes just so I don't see things for what they are. Or maybe to accept that I've been blind, or just high on whatever you want to call this, all along.

No more. Never again.

But ultimately, I have to stop feeling like this precisely because I love her.

And I'm still recovering from it. 'Twas a weekend in Bristol of capoeira workshops taught by several capoeira mestres from Brazil, men vs women Afro-Brazilian dance-offs, samba dancing, and chilling out and relaxing with my closest friends. Craig, Laura, and myself also got my first capoeira belts. I could list the moments and things I appreciated from the trip, such as the deeply appreciated feeling of an air conditioned room and drinking a litre of water which never tasted so good as after training in capoeira in hot, sticky atmosphere, or the experience of going out for a plentiful and decent meal when you're hungry and haven't eaten real food for over 24 hours, but in conclusion, the trip was wonderful, not perfect, but wonderful, just like the people I was with. I'm sure we would eventually probably start to drive each other nuts at times if around each other continually, but it's really suprising how much I miss people, having spent 3 days with them, just a few hours after saying goodbye til Tuesday.

Anyways, I am a happy TeHChris, with many happy memories.

Oh, and here's a pic from the capoeira grading, where I was playing against Mestre Vatuso (who really does look a lot like a taller version of Morgan Freeman), shortly before he proceeded to knock me to the floor several times.

Justificatio sola gratia sola fide est, y'all.

My church is doing our Better Course again... (Alpha > Beta > Better... yeah, someone think of a better name). It's a 5 part Intro to Christianity presentation and discussion type thing intended for those both inside and outside the church... though thus far, it's been almost entirely inside. The various parts are: 1. The Bible 2. God 3. Prayer 4. The Means of Grace 5. Church and Life. Today was the first part, involving a. Intro to the Bible (Overview, reliability, etc.) b. Law and Gospel c. The Purpose of Scripture

The turnout this time was a little disappointing. A third of the people on the list didn't show up, and I was the only person in the room without grey/white hair. Anyways, we had some fruitful discussion. Since my audience was only 9 people this time, and perhaps this isn't entirely useless I'm posting it here for yous peoples to read if you're bored and have nothing better to do.

----
At this point in our discussion, we must ask ourselves, "What is the purpose of this Bible?" Some think of the Bible as God's instructions for our lives, sometimes using the word as an acronym for "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth". While it is certainly true that there is much moral guidance to be found within the pages of Scripture, this is not it's ultimate and primary purpose.

One section of the Bible, known as the psalms, is a collection of spiritual songs. The first psalm begins,
"Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the council of the ungodly,
nor stands in the path of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of the scornful,
but his delight is the Law of the Lord,
and in His Law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree,
planted by rivers of water,
which bears fruit in its season
and whose leaf does not wither,
and everything he does shall prosper".

Remembering the distinction we encountered in the previous talk, "Law" or "Torah" as in the Hebrew, does not just refer to the books of Moses which are classified as "Law", but very often is used to mean God's commands, holy and pure, which we, as sinners, fail to live up to. At first, therefore, this psalm, in it's encouragement to delight in God's Law, may seem to be promoting an attitude of something like, "hey God, I really love all these rules... please stick a few more on me!" If we are honest with ourselves, that's not a natural attitude to have. As sinners, we don't delight in God's law. God commands more than we obey, and demands more than we can give. We despise his Law, routinely break it, and if we bring ourselves to strive to keep it, we despair in our failure to live up to it. But this psalm is not designed to promote a Ned Flanders-like, holier-than-thou mindset of spiritual superiority. In fact, again and again is such pharisaism condemned as shallow hypocrisy, hated by God. And no one spoke out against such hypocrisy more than Jesus Himself. Instead, to delight in the Torah of the Lord, does not mean finding joy in legal code as much as delighting in God's saving acts throughout history... saving his people from fiery judgement, freeing them from slavery in Egypt, guiding them home through the wilderness, saving them from defeat in war and bringing them home from exile... but these are mere prototypes of God's salvation, which reaches its climax and fulfilment in the giving of Christ as the atoning sacrifice for our sins on the cross.

In this way, the whole of Scripture, the whole of this Law of the Lord, is about Christ. Jesus said himself to the Pharisees, "you search the Scriptures thinking that in them you have life, when it is they that testify of me". Christ is the subject and the content of the Bible. Of course, it is easy to think of a few verses in the OT which spoke explicitly about Christ before His coming, such as God's promise to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15, that one born of a woman would defeat Satan and in doing so, feel the sting of death, or God's promise through Isaiah, "The Virgin shall conceive a Son and you shall call him Immanuel which means God with us" and "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. But Jesus doesn't intend to say that part of Holy Scripture is about Him, but all of it.

What about the seemingly dry and boring parts of Scripture? How about these verses from Leviticus 24:

Anyone who kills an animal shall make restitution for it, life for life. Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered. One who kills an animal shall make restitution for it; but one who kills a human being shall be put to death.

Now wherever is Jesus in that? Well, it's important to remember in the cultural context in which Leviticus was written, sacrifices initiated new beginnings. Abraham offered a sacrifice when God established his covenant with him, and Moses commemorated God's revelation to him on Mount Sinai with a special sacrifice. This concept, in the aforementioned verses, was carried over into normal life, in that the Hebrew people were required to make restitution for wrongs. But however could they right their wrongs against an angry God to whom they could offer nothing? In Isaiah 53, we read that the Suffering Servant, Jesus, is the one who bears the griefs and sorrows of his people, carrying their tresspasses. All of this Old Testament understanding provides the background for the simple New Testament confession, "Jesus died for sins". The Old Testament sacrifices were done to point the Old Testament church to the means by which their sins would be paid for them, in the sacrificial death of the one mediator between God and man, the sacrificial death of the One who is both truly God and truly man.

Even the seemingly shallow historical detail which the gospel writers mention in their accounting of the suicide of Judas Iscariot has Christological meaning. We read that Judas attempts to rid himself of his responsibility in Jesus' torture and death, by returning the 30 pieces of silver by which he had betrayed Jesus. When this does not work, he takes his own life, and the 30 pieces of silver is used to purchase a plot of land which became known as the "field of blood" because it was purchased with blood money. This is no mere historical sidetracking by the Gospel writers, rather the message which it is used to strengthen is that only the death of Jesus, and not silver nor the death of an ordinary man can ransom or purchase another person from the condemnation of their own sins.

As the last of these examples, what is very often seen as primarily moral teaching misses the point that it is actually about Christ. In Matthew's gospel, Jesus tells us this parable:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Many see this as Jesus telling us that the gospel is so precious that we should be willing to give all we have for it. And this fact is true. But it is not the sense of the story. In context, we see that this treasure-finding man... is God Himself. And you... you are the treasure which he gave all He had for, His only begotten Son, so that you may be His. God's Son Jesus Christ, instead of leaving us with only a Law which we never live up to, delighted in that Law himself, fulfilling it for us, then on the cross, carrying out the greatest transaction ever undertaken... swapping the punishment we deserve for the blessings and honour and glory which He deserved. God gave all that He had, so that you might be His treasure, and this is the message which the Bible continually points us to.

Going back to psalm 1... "he shall be like a tree planted near rivers of water, which bears fruit in its season, and whose leaf endures, and everything he does shall prosper". Jesus and his cross, are that tree. You, believing the message of his reconciling of the world to himself, are His prosperity. You, being reconciled to God through Him, are His fruit.

In conclusion, the Bible is about Jesus.

John De Soto says he can tell I'm happy in this pic.

Some things are better left a mystery.

Muh....

Ok, I'm gonna blog something else.

People really should read Here We Stand. It's often extremely deep, requiring theological engagement and can sometimes take a long time to read, but a well of blog classics.

I came across this today, credits to Thomas. Sarcasm may be called "the lowest form of wit" but sometimes, it's just darn entertaining and extremely memorable. This is most definitely worth reading, then of course, one must adhere to the usual procedure of printing out and stapling onto the heads of unsuspecting peasants. If the confessional-historical stuff seems over your head, just check out the stuff in le bold:

What is this 'extrinsic' justification of which you speak? I don't know from Calvin (being an ignrint protestant and all), but seems to me there's nothing in Luderanville that requires such a chimera. Just as an example, given in the context of the Formula of Concord's rather Cyrillian (of Alexander, that is, just to keep our Cyril’s straight) musings on the Person of Christ: “Great indeed is the mystery of our religion: God was manifested in the flesh” [1 Tim. 3.16]. Since St. Peter testifies with clear words that even we, in whom Christ dwells only by grace, have in Christ, because of this exalted mystery, “become partakers of the divine nature” [2 Pet. 1.4], what kind of participation in the divine nature must that be of which the apostle says that “in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” in such a way that God and man are a single person!’ Now, I don't know about y'all, but here in Hicksville it seems that the stuff about 'forensic justification,' far from exhausting what we have to say, doesn't even get at the core of the matter. I mean, if we can just toss off that ultra cool business about 'partaking of God's nature' and all. Besides, I don't know that all such 'innovations' are ever and ever unto ages of ages that bad anyway.

Oh, and why should anyone answer your questions anyway? You can't stand the sola fide, fine fine. It's wrong, terribly wrong that God wants to bestow on you and me and the whole stinking lot of us his very life in the Person of his Incarnate Son. What's worse, he wants to do this for nothing other than his good pleasure. He's declared peace, unilaterally and for his own glory and to manifest his own goodness. He's funny that way, you know, not wanting to cede his glory to another, willing to play the fool and make himself weak in order to woo us to himself. Dying for us, you see, so that we might live in the fullness of the Resurrection. And all we have to do is trust him. That is a terrible innovation, a reckless destruction of tradition, a mighty blow to all that is good and sweet-smelling. How can God dare in his mercy to save your sorry ass without your permission or cooperation? What effrontery to our dignity! What carelessness with our free will! Yes, the Holy Trinity has declared peace in the birth, life, teaching, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and all we can do is keep fighting him! All we want is to earn it, make it on our own dime, not have to depend on what he’s already done for heaven’s sake! That’s our universal condition, but some of us seem to like it, to think it’s a virtue. You know what, you hate God, that’s what it is. Just like me, you of your own pure brain hate him; you can’t stand his very Godness: his majesty, his overbearing beauty, goodness, and love. You, my friend, are in hell, and I’d call you to repent and hear the Gospel, but you’d probably just throw another apologetic spin on it all.

Which reminds me of something. You can take all your arguments, all your twisting of other people's words, all your 'professional apologetics' and disappear for all I care. Apologetics indeed - who needs 'em, either Luderan or Catlick or whatever? Fat waste of time. It’s another game to try and keep that pesky, foolish, terrible God at arms’ length.

Dylan's operation got cancelled due to an emergency and the surgeon's leaving to go on holiday for 2 weeks tomorrow, so it's rescheduled for the end of the month or beginning of July, dependent on when beds become present. He was given pre-operation drugs, shaved, etc. then they cancelled it just as he was about to go into the operating theatre.

Ok, I'm going out with friends now. Bye.

So I'm not as rational and logical as I thought I was a few months ago.

And I had to re-examine my past experiences and redefine "falling in love"... it's not what I thought it was. I thought I had been in the past, but this was different. Way different.

I don't know whether falling in love, as unrequited as it was, should be likened to having my eyes opened... or maybe going blind... or just going insane.

In any case, I don't miss my mind.
I'm actually glad I can see so much beauty and wonder in one person.

In the past, I think I could have day-dreamed an imitation of that together, and I did, several times, but... this time, it was totally pedestal-free and not something I was especially looking for there and then. I even remarked to my friends how she was pretty much exactly what I had hoped for, yet still totally not my usual "type".

And now... I'm strangely not disappointed about anything at all that has happened/didn't happen.

That's a heck of a lot different to the usual "reality hitting me like a ton of bricks" feeling I got with failed crushes in the past.

Perhaps I just felt and sensed all the right things but at the wrong time, with the wrong person. I've gotten thoroughly used to the closed door. It didn't make me stop caring about her, or continuing to enjoy her and find her more wonderful as time went by, despite that door being nailed shut.

It almost scares me that on one hand I can't get a yes or no answer to the question, "did I do anything wrong in this?", and on the other hand, that I'm thinking, "maybe I'm insane and can't think rationally anymore, but I'm ok with that".

It's either like being drunk, or just incredibly sober.
I'm not what I thought I was.

Words fail.

My brother's going into hospital on Monday with the operation scheduled for Tuesday morning. The surgery should take 6 hours if they're able to repair the mitral valve, or 2-4 hours if they simply replace it.

As opposed to my parents, I'm not a big worrier. Everything's out of my hands so there's nothing I can do now other than pray for him and trust God acting in and through the surgeons who are actually doing a fairly routine procedure.

Still the thought, "Dude, they're going to saw open my little brother's ribcage and stop his heart" every so often comes to mind.

I don't think this is breaking my record for number of posts in a day, but at least you know I'm really back to the blogosphere.

Anyways, here's something to think about.

That Latin exam I took on the beginning of the month... well, I just don't quite get what they're trying to demonstrate in their marking scheme, which goes like this:

1. Mark the papers, have them checked by an external examiner to make sure everything's been marked fairly.
2. Record the test scores of all the students.
3. Multiply everyone's test score by 0.8 then enter that as the final score.

Right.... so... just in case I'm going TOTALLY nuts here... again... does anyone else see any good reason in the Cardiff University Academic Registry immediately docking 20% of a student's test score, so that it's actually impossible, even if you produced the most perfect translation ever seen, to have a result of not more than 80%?

Honestly I think the Registry would run the university just fine if it weren't for all those pesky students.

Me, being... me:



My side-kick, (The)Jay:



She made that pic a few months ago, but it still makes me think, "awwwww..."

Before anyone says anything at all... I'm not rebounding. She lives in Alabama. And has a boyfriend. And by the time I finish helping her to learn Greek (webcam + mics + DSL come in useful) she'll probably hate me, for life.

But right now at least, "awwww..."

In my previous post Tim suggested that unrequited love was for the purpose of measuring my own love for God.

But you know what?

I don't love God... not as I should.

Even if I knew nothing of Christ, God gives me all that I have and love, need and treasure. With all the great things I have in my life, you'd think that I'd be more grateful. The 10 Commandments are in effect, commands to simply give God his due. As we read in Luther's explanation of them, for each one, "We should fear and love God so that..."

But I don't. That's manifest in my attitude, my actions, my words, and my thoughts. Occasionally I might feel like I'm doing something right, but how long does it last before I'm back to my old ways? In a perfect world, everyone would love God as they should, but it's not a perfect world, it's a very imperfect one, and I am a very imperfect and messed up man.

It's tough to run from the very clothes you're wearing.

I'm doing nothing more than stating the obvious when each week I confess, "I have not loved You with my whole heart, I have not loved my neighbours as myself. I justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment."

My inconsistent and meagre love for God doesn't count for squat. It's not what He commands. He commands perfect love because He deserves perfect love, and in that I fail. And it's no suprise that only in one place in the entire Bible, the final chapter of John's gospel, Christ asks, "do you love me?" and that's only to let Simon Peter know he's going to live, and die, for Him.

Yet despite all my failings, I'm not getting what I deserve.

"For just at the right time, when we were still weak, Christ died for the ungodly. For very rarely will someone die for a righteous man - though for a good man someone might possibly bring himself to die. But God demonstrates his love to us in this: While we were still unrepentant, ungrateful sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5)

I'm not so much interested in asking myself, "how much do I love God?" Such interrogation, if I'm really honest with myself, only leads to knowledge of my failings and to despair.
What I am interested in, is knowing the love God has for me in Christ.
I'm more wrong than right than wrong, and yet somehow God would rather die than be without me.

And He did.

And with Himself, He raised me from death, both physical and the one I was living in.

I don't love God as I should, but Christ did, and in the Great Exchange of things, God now looks at me and sees Christ and His perfection, His righteousness, His love.

I don't love God as I should, but because God is saving me in Christ, someday, when He returns on the last day of this imperfect world, I will. And then the world will be perfect. Forever.

What purpose (if any) is there in unrequited love? I'm not just referring to my circumstances here. It's something probably everyone feels at least once in their life, and when they do, they feel as alone as they possibly could. I know, right now, it feels like suffering, but is it? If it is, is it a type that produces proven character producing hope? I guess I'm wondering if I, and those in similar boats, will ever feel less... like they've poured out their hearts into... meaninglessness?