I wanted to first talk a little bit about Theoreau and Malcom X. Right now I am reading Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience." He gives some strong statments. I'll give some which I thought were good. "How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it?" "Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them." "There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them;" Some of these statements make me ask Why do we not waste our lives on the name of Christ? What does that mean for me who at a university comes in contant with hundreds of students who profess Christ but do not have the basic worldview of a Christian? How can I influence those around me because it seems that those around me are ultimately the ones that I will influence the most. Are we merely called to live "nice lives." Does it say anywhere in the Bible that Jesus was nice. I can talk about this for 7 hours about how it seems we as Christians are passive and not bold about our faith. But I am still trying to understand how we can have a shift in the church from this passive peacefulness where we avoid anything that requires a challenge. I mean how do we do this? Does that mean we pray more? Pray for revival. What do think about "Civil Disobedience?" I am trying to keep a objective distance where I can see his trancendentailism and indiviaulism for what it is and at the same time see what he is saying about believing something. If you truly believe something you will live if out. I also read a Malcom X essay. What do think about Malcom X. I read "Homemade education." It's amazing that he learned everything in jail. He says he read for 15 hours a day. That's crazy. What if we did that? In reality X stole the idea from Paul. It is a statement to my mental laziness when I look at what X did. What do you think about that in contrast to faith? We must live by faith and love one another yet at the same time be sharp with our minds? When I first went to see Ken Burns I didn't know that much about him. I remembered the Civil War documentary I watched when I was in 8th grade. I walked in with a bandana around my head and gym shorts and a bookbag and it seemed that everyone had gray hair in there. When he came out I don't think I've ever heard such a consistent, loud applause anywhere. They clapped and clapped. I didn't picture a Civil War historian to look so young either. When he started speaking I thought he was a little bit pretentiious. He didnt exactly come out and give a humble thanks for the appluase but he quickly started his speech as if he were reading something in a theatre. Or maybe I should say he were reciting a soliloquy from Hamlet. Thats the way he sounded. He would say "Listen" to get us to remember and hear history in the words he was saying. So the more he talked the more I respected his language and his ablity to make distinctions and be precise. After hearing him speak made me want to be more literate and be able to write. Hearning such a strong speaker makes me want to learn how to have a command of words and be able to speak it well. As he was speaking I kept thinking of a phrase that CS Lewis said: "chronlogical snobbery." Although burns did say something like "human advancement" which turned my stomach, he kept stressing our notion that we tend to forget history and think that it has no meaning in our life today, as if it never happened. He said something that sounded a little bit like Whitman: Who are we as Americans? He said that then later in his speech he quoted whitman. The speech focused on the American identity, but isnt that what most of his work is? He said that he focused on the three things that Ameica will be remembered for: jazz, the civil war, and baseball. I would like to get that sppech on tape or CD. He did inspire me to think about the possibiltes of making a documentary. My friend Brian and I have always talked about making a documentary. We wanted to do one on the English langauge. Yet we havent done it yet. Just maybe a study, yet we know nothing about documentaries. I do remember one thing he said. After a lady complemented him on his writing skills, she asked how this influenced him. He said that the English langauge is the most popular lanugae in the world. He noted that the English language has SO many words. He influenced me to write much more. His speech made me want to remember what it means to be passiionate about something and make a difference about it. His speech reminded me the power of public speaking. It is so powerful and I wonder sometimes what is next for me. What do you think about Ken Burns? What are his beliefs? Thanks Nathan

I just saw Lords of Dogtown. I don't know how to skateboard but it made me want to skateboard. The footage from the movie was very impressive. The kids in the movie could skate like nonother. Maybe the scene in Back to the Future when Marty Mcfly is skating on the back of the pick up was taken from this style of skating. Probably was. Surfing and skating. Every kid's dream these days. This movie was almost like the skater kid's Dazed and Confused. The party scene. The girls. Hanging out with a crowd out of your leauge. Working your way to popularity and acceptence. Getting by with about anything. I know this movie will be appealing to many youth after seeing hundreds of kids come through camp enamored and obsessed with skating. It seems there is a shift. Used to all the kids wanted to be the football star. They wanted to lift weights and be the guy playing quaterback in the fourth quater. Kids wanted to go to all the parties after the game and be the guy everyone highfives. It seems these days kids are beginning to abandon the big three sports(baseball, football, basketball) and head toward skating and extreme sports. Kids don't have to deal with coaches when they skateboard. They can do their own thing. When all the kids quit basketball and baseball and football they will meet all their friends at the park for skating. Maybe listen to a little music. Now we have this movie out presenting a lifestyle that presents a glorified lifestyle that appeals to the kid who has hopes of becoming a skate champ. That lifestyle used to be presented in movies like Varsity Blues, American Pie, Can't Hardly Wait and Van Wilder. Now it is presented in a different style in this movie with boys who are 16 having sex with girls who look like their big sisters. Are you kidding me? That doesn't happen. It just doesnt. Just like all those scences in those other movies I mentioned. Television producers feed us males a big lie when we see these other males having the time of his life with an older woman. Hollywood portrays sex as the pinnicle of our existence. When it comes down to it we get manipulated into believing a lie. They choose to show us what happened out of the Lord of the Dogtown story. The story is based on a true story. We have to remember when we watch a movie like this we can be easily manipulated. Francis Schaeffer words this well: "Actually, TV manipulates viewers just by its normal way of operating. Many viewers seem to assume that wehn they ahve seen something on TV, they have seen it with thier own eyes. It makes the viewer think he has acutally been on the scene. He knows, because his own eyes have seen. He has the impression of greater direct objective knowledge than every before. For many, what they see on television becomes more true than what they see with thier eyes in the external world." This is honestly what was going through my head when I was watching the Lords of Dogtown. I've been through high school and I can honestly say that I know what happens. Alot of the stuff portrayed in all those football movies and this movie are exaggerated. We gotta be careful what we the television feeds our heads. We have to be critical of some of the things we see in movies and not be so naieve to think all this stuff happens. Then we look at chick flicks............ I'll step back off my box now.

Zach, I just finished a Francis Schaeffer book called How should we then live? Its your book. I still have that book and the Os Guiness book. I wanted to tell you what I learned in the Francis Schaeffer book so I wouldnt forget it. Right now I am trying to understand what he means by "non-compassionate use of accumulated wealth" Right now I understand that to be how people today are living in excess and are ignoring the people who do not have. Possibly when he speaks of this he means specifically how Christians have so much yet give so little. If we are to be compassionate with what we have that means we give liberally or without question to people who need it. Maybe not directly to organizations but to people who you know need it. People who you come across who you know who need it in the name of Christ. I need to go back and read a bit of that. Zach I have been learning about how jacked up communism is. I know at one time you thought I was a communist but I am not a communist. (Remember in Canada?) I've been learning about how ideas from communism can damage us in so many different areas. It seems people think we can have a half communism or something. Yet what people tend to ignore is Marx's worldview and much of the lack of freedom that communism presented. I dont think I could write you this letter if we lived in a communist nation. It seems that everything in communist nation is censored for the state's purpose and by the state. One person who has taught me lots is my uncle. He hates communism and is convincted that the democratic party is socialistic. He's and educated Christian and has his masters in history. No doubt he has helped me when I have questions. I have began to realize the imporatnce of having people a bit older than you to answer questions objectively. TOday in our universities our education is completley bias. That is in the secualr universities. The liberal point of view rules and we dont get an objective view of both sides. I'm not refering to politics completley but mostly truth. In this environment we see the professor as the one who thinks and has the 'truth.' When we remember back to our home we can't think of anyone who can answer our deep questions in our lives. We suppose our parents to never have had these doubts. We suppose our preachers and pastors to give us simplistic answers. So we queitly believe the professors dogma and take his word over the Word of God. So in effect we dont have anyone who can answer our deep questions. This is where I think Snowbird is doing a good job. It seems here at the university the leadership in the Christian organizations is mostly people who do not think about engaging with the culture. When I was a sophmore Campus Crusade was undergoing a change in leadership and I was considered one of the leader like people. Things have changed in the last 2 years and there is senior leadership, one being my friend Seth. But honestly without these older people to guide and direct us we dont have anyone who we can ask those "contradictions in the Bible" that the professor points out to us. We are left without someone to ask questions to. This is where my uncle has been a big influence in my life and I think his input has strengthend my faith. Along with that, I thinkThis is where I think Snowbird is doing a good job. When there is no one older to set an example for younger guys to look up to I believe that we begin have a lack of accoutnablity because our peers become our examples. Right now I am 21(and next Tuesday I will be 22.....not sure how to react to that). Zach I want to thank you and Spencer for being at Snowbird to give all us younger guys an example. Guys my age need those who are older as examples to understand who they are in Christ and how they can lead a Christ centered life. Although you might not know it, you are doing alot more than you think in your position at SWO namely, giving an example to the staff and campers. Thanks for standing up for the Truth of the Bible. So thanks Zach. And thanks for challengeing me. I hope to understand what it means to humbly disciple others just as I have been discipled at SWO. Thanks so much and I look forward future friendship with you. In Christ, nate

Nathan, Don't worry about the questions. I am happy to answer them. This week has been busy due to labor day and the fact that FEMA has ordered over 30,000 RV's for hurricane relief shelters and we're in a scramble to provide batteries. I did not say that the educational system caused excess. I said it has eroded the work ethic in this country which has created sloth among many people. Sloth, by the way, is a biblical term for laziness. The founder of the modern educational system, John Dewey, believed that education should be separated from morality. He was a confirmed atheist and marxist. He did not believe in corporal discipline for a child, and thought that each should pursue his own individual inclinations within the classroom. Thus the former system of repetitive memorization and written practice was thrown out the window. Children were no longer compelled to work to learn, or earn, as it were. Relativism reared its ugly head. The disaster that ensued has only been complicated by the Federal government taking it over. The past forty years or so have been one case after another of the government putting a band aid on the system to stop the bleeding. The latest being the so-called "No child left behind" program. The Protestant work ethic is alive, still, through tradition, and through the Bible, which is where it comes from. Proverbs is filled with verses which define its precepts. Your Paw-Paw and my Dad are two living examples of what I mean. So I don't mean to say that everybody's lazy now, because they aren't. Spoiled? well that's another matter. There is an old saying. Give a man a fish and you feed him for one day, but teach him to fish and you'll feed him for life. The "entitlement culture" I spoke of comes from the government giving people "fish," but not teaching them "to fish." I'm talking about the welfare state, in which the government has given handouts, in the name of noblesse oblige, for 70 years and created a class of dependants, who are not given any incentive to work and have come to feel entitled to this money. In the black community, this has been very harmful, because black mothers have refused to marry the fathers of their children, knowing they can be supported by the government dole. Why does this continue? Because we have a certain national political party, which starts with a "D," that depends upon these folks for their votes. You mentioned the word excess. That might mean different things to different people. To me, excess is the Federal Government, which wastes money like garbage. Excess is a woman with too many miles at the tanning booth and too much adornment, or makeup. Excess is the amount of food we waste, and arbitrary things we buy. Excess is spending exorbitant amounts for Christmas when their are poor people nearby who have nothing. Excess is buying new furniture, or a new car because your neighbor just did. (The Bible has a word for this called coveting. Our whole system of advertising and consumerism is built upon our covetous natures) Excess is watching television all day long. In short, I think excess is anything material and of the flesh that keeps us from focusing on the truth of what Christ is doing in our lives. Instead of having a nation where anyone, and I mean anyone, could work their way to a better lifestyle, the way we used to. We are slowly becoming a nation of "haves" and "have nots," with the "haves" flaunting their material success and the "have nots" blaming the haves and the government for their lack thereof, never having been taught to work to achieve anything. Gotta go. Still not finished. Brad

When we consider what we should do about the environment people typically blame many things on the environment. Some people blame American consumerism, that is the American’s idea that they can take over anything and make it their own. Again is the insatiable desire for things and more power the thing that America lifts up as a good and desirable thing? Yes it does. America holds up consumerism in every advertisement you see. You see a person having some product in their hand and appearing to be completely fulfuilled in it. That is American consumerism and how it affects our society. Now when we see that and point at it and say “Get rid of American consumerism, that is the problem, that is what will save the environment.” That would be a mistake because there is something deeper. American consumerism fuels the fire on the damage of the environment. It makes people tear down entire forest so that they can build a development that “fulfills” the desire of the American Dream for 50 familes. Yet when that development is built, the 40 of those 50 familes begin looking for a house on the beach or in the mountains or on a local lake, seeking more. Man keeps looking for something else to fulfill him and it is all OK in the name of the American Dream. Could this be coveting when we continually are discontented in our situations and looking for another outlet? Yet back to my point when looking at environmental cases, we could blame American consumerism for the destruction of our environment. The deeper issue is sin. Man’s self intrest and trust in his ways over the ways of the Lord. He cannot find what he is looking for therefore he keeps on trying new things, failing everytime because he doesn’t realize complete contentment is found in the Lord. That covetness and that endless desire is much like sexual addictions. I cant find this so I’ll go over here and try to get this house and destroy this entire marshland cause it looks like a fun place to look at. Ill destroy this “small” patch on the mountain cause that’s what I have worked for and I own the land. We never consider all the stuff we tear down when we destroy things. So, the root of the destruction of God’s creation is a sin problem of pride and horrible stewardship and covetness more than a secular academic term of American consumerism or even progress.