bread&tea

Humanities breath is frail. Empty words void of substance. Our faulty expository persuades others even less than it persuades ourselves, even while we let it deceive us. Now, I know I just asked this two posts ago, but, why am I a writer? WHY ME!?!? The answer to which, is of course, "Because I made you that way." A long time ago I always wanted to be a police officer. Then I seriously considered pursuing the career of a fireman (which is still a possibility for the future), and then finally decided that my career would be primarily ministry focused. Our finality is never so stable as we assume it to be though, and soon thereafter I resigned myself to a more passive ministry preparation: part-time work, school-finishing, local ministries, and personal growth. Interestingly, some seemingly insignificant detail was also added, I started a blog. At the risk of sounding cliche, "little did I know". Little did I know of God's bigger plan for me, a plan th...

For the past several months I have been mulling over one particular concept. That's not to say I haven't thought of anything else, but that this thought has never utterly left my mind so much as unfortunately important other things do. Like eating. And finishing high-school. And the rapidly lengthening grass... apparently all of which are of equal importance to my superiors. This one thought involves the Christian faith, as opposed to all other faiths. Here is a simple and yet amazingly cohesive expository of the Gospel in five minutes. (he says four, but the clip is five long) This is from Dare 2 Share ministries. *Note, the Adblock Plus add-on for firefox will block this video from showing unless you disable it. So good. I think this clip really shines in making the Gospel as simple as possible, but not simpler. Interesting side note, when the clip mentions all religions admitting that there's something wrong with us, I couldn't help but think that Christian...

I have enjoyed this two week hiatus, and yet hated it at the same time. Why did I start a blog? Constantly wanting to write, and constantly procrastinating, and constantly flipping between happiness and disappointment. The commitment is both thrilling and a ball and chain. I am tired of writing articles. Maybe they are more intelligent sounding, or professionally appealing, but that's not what I care about. Constantly reworking my every sentence to read like an erudite scholar's essay is stifling and only makes me loath writing. I've searched around the internet to find two quotes by Albert Einstein I wanted to share: "Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius- and a lot of courage- to move in the opposite direction.” "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." So very true. Take Mark Driscoll or Ravi Zacharias for example, two wise and intelligent teachers. So much of their...

How important is somebody's life? Is it worth putting effort into a relationship with them? Is anything else worth more? To Save A Life proclaims the question, "What would you do to save a life?", as its proposed theme. Which, although a good question to ask, didn't come across to me as the movie's actual message. School violence is also one of its promoted themes, and another point I disagree with it on. So, despite being different from what it says, (I will explain shortly) that in no way ruins the movie itself. Here's some of the pluses for this movie: first, while it may be called a "christian film", I know the stereotype placed on that label is totally messed up- twisted and degraded to lies, and so I don't call To Save A Life a "christian film". Facts said, the film isn't preachy, and instead of trying to explain God, and show how a christian should live their life, (a completely hopeless task to show in a movie, because a...

To explain the title, I'm starting a new type of blog post, hence the parentheses. I like using them so people can immediately tell what some posts are going to be like. Such as (movie review), (1-page), (poem or song), and now (scripture study). Specifically taking one or a few verses and talking about what I've found interesting in them. That aside.... Proverbs 20:5 says, "The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out." Now I shall explain why I love this verse. The main reason is because from what I see, there are at least two different views to look at it from. That of looking inward at our own hearts, or outward towards others'. First, it would be easy enough to say that the heart is like deep waters, but instead the verse says purposes . Specifically moving from generic, to personal. Then water, which could mean a variety of things. Off the top of my head I'd say plentiful, thick, or most likely, burie...

For a very long time I have held off beginning a novel. It's only existence is in pencil sketching maps and bare-bones plotlines, but it has tenuously held my mind with surprising strength despite efforts to ignore it. My reasoning being that I know for myself that I cannot write this book the way I want it written; I simply do not have the skill yet. Stupid reasoning! I will never get good enough to write the story the way I want it written unless I write stories, and I don't have any I want to write but this one. So, I'm writing it now, and when I'm done, I will be good enough to go through and redo it the way it was meant to be done. That said, it is with immense happiness that I share with you tonight, the prelude. I will not be posting the entirety of the story as I write it though. With revision in mind, this is not the final draft. I sincerely hope you enjoy this first step, rough edges and silliness and all.             ...

Today I had the privilege of attending Faith Bible Church in Lincoln Nebraska, which had a special group from Sweden doing the music and sermon this Sunday. Of special note, they played  "How Great Thou Art", which was originally from Sweden. Cool! I wish I had more information about this group, as they are doing a tour to raise awareness (and prayerfully money and missionaries too) about Sweden's highly secularized society. Good stuff. I was thinking about one of the songs we sang today. “Come, Now Is The Time To Worship”, I love this song. It's perfect for playing before going to church, or while doing chores in the home, or driving in the car, but not in church. I don't mean it's wrong to sing it in church, just that I don't like to. After getting cleaned up, dressed up, prettied up, and driving the nicest car available to church, it doesn't feel right to be singing, “Come, just as you are”. Real life just isn't all of those at once most of th...