Recently I picked my crate full of old albums up from home. I shifted them around and unstacked to see what I could find. Going through an old album collection is like going through an old picture book. The recovery of older albums bring back nostalgia from the past. I’ll remember the album covers from when I pondered whether to buy the album at the music store at the mall. Asking myself if I should wait or not. In seventh grade there Napster did not exist or any Internet system for that matter. Only the radio and those CDs which I annually bought, when I had debated for probably three weeks to buy or not. My parents would always ask what I got at the mall when I went to the mall by myself. Music has changed much now and only recently did I buy an album that I hadn’t heard. In later years in high school CDNow stoked me because you could listen online before buying the CD. And now we can avoid spending over a dollar for an album whether that be a pirated disk or purchasing MP3’s online. If you would ask me if burning CDs were morally wrong I would have not choice to say “no” because I have an entire CD case full of burnt CDs pirated off the internet. I do not think it is wrong because to me music is art and art should be shared. I might pay for a concert but for music no. Please disagree with me but if you are starting a band what is your motive? Is your motive to make this a career? Is your motive to get a message across? Messages that people truly believe require sacrifice. If a guitar-bearing 20 year old wants to get a message across, then he will play at clubs and let people know of his message. Did not Paul do the same in the Bible? Paul went around preaching the Gospel and it seems that if a man wants to get a message across he will let that message be known. Maybe if more musicians sang about topics less women and started singing about things that mattered they would quit complaining. I say to the artist, know what your living for: Is it the Gospel? Is it to glorify God? I never saw a rich artist. Most people who stand for something have to give up something. And it seems that an artist must give up some of his dreams and expectations if he wants to get a message across. What did Paul do? He was crazy about Christ. He went to jail for Christ and made the Gospel known. He gave up himself. He did not conform to the religious standard, he let people know about his personal relationship with Jesus Christ. People who believe something let others know about it. People who believe something want others to know and see the glory of God as well. What is it that I believe in? What is it that I give up my aspirations of making money for the sake of a cause, a cause bigger than myself? That’s when I’ll quit complaining about what is fair and start saying what is true. Last night we watched Dead Poet Society. The beginning of the movie is set with a new professor John Keating coming to an all boys school. The boys are drilled by older men, professors who have their traditional way of teaching. Keating is younger professor, one who’s step has a driving force behind it. He does not walk with the passivity and self-protection of the olderf professors but he walks with a move forward. Keating moves with what he knows to be true and doesn’t question what he believes. The first day of class he orders that the boys rip the pages out of their books. What does Christ have to do with this? Well keating meant what he said when he said rip the pages out of the book. I know that Christ meant what he said when he said turn the other cheek. Keating finally told the boys yes do it tear them out, tear the pages out of the book. The boys hesitated thinking he was only talking figuratively. Christ meant what he said when he said pray for your enemies. Bless those who persecute you. Jesus did not make jokes about what he wanted to say. The boys ripped the pages out of the book. I’m not suggesting ripping the pages out of the Bible. I am suggesting putting them in the heart and taking them literally. When Paul talked about praying for his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ I know that he meant it. Paul seemed to be a very dependable guy. Am I kidding? Am I kidding when I say what I am going to do? When I tell others I am going to start doing this or that do I do it or am I just trying to impress others. Is it empty talk? What about when I write this? Am I saying this or do I mean it? The Danielson Famile’s new album Off the Ol’ Chopping Block is a CD that as some say “grows on you.” The first time I heard it I thought it was a joke. I bought it a year ago off the internet after Laudio told me I would like it. He knows the next band to break big. So a year ago I listened to it and I laughed out loud and the absurdity of some of the lyrics. The lyrics were simply stated but they all sounded as if they were part of the Muppet Babies. It was if Sufjan Stevens met the Muppets met Nirvana. So I laughed and thought about showing it to my friends so they could laugh with me. And I did. They laughed thought the voices were hilarious. But it was never an album that I thought I could listen to all the way through. It was too comical. So when I picked it up the other day I started listening to it and realized it the lyrics were simplified themes of the Bible. It was almost as if the muppets had went to seminary and started reading out of the message, that Bible that people claim to be easier to read, but they never read it anyways they just like to say its easier to read. I’ve never seen someone with a worn in Message. Lyrics like “my daddy can beat your daddy” and “take a bath in the blood” and “we’re all brothers, we’re all sisters.” Its like a subconscious slogans of biblical truths. God can conquer people. The blood of Christ can wash us of our sin. To take a bath in the blood means that we need to be human and not modern(who thinmk that we’ve progressed past things like that). And that we are are all brother and sisters in Christ and why are we lusting after one another? We wouldn’t have sex with our sister, so why think lustfully of other women. And more than that, women who are not saved, we shouldn’t be thinking of them in that way either. Don’t pervert our lives with selfish sexual desires. Probably the best thing I still like about the Danielson Famile is that they have a 12 year old in the band. And I cannot tell if that little person’s voice that sounds like a muppet is the one singing the refrains throughout the album. Maybe that’s my favorite part about this album: it makes real biblical truth fun and tasteful, putting it into the slogans that go through our head. Not that we should make it fun. But that is the way it is supposed to be. I went to Wendy’s to grab a bite to eat. I sat down beside a couple, beside me and thanked the Lord for my food. I ate and talked to my brother and Matt, we thought about going outside to have fun in this new place. I ate my buger and my shake and then felt full with my brothers here. I noticed the two strangers. They looked to be married. While matt and Daniel talked, I thought about these two. They sat together but did not talk. They probably had raised kids together and had fun together and laughed together but only started and ate their fries with a quiet faces. Were they sitting alone? Were they both blind? Did they know that their husband and wife were sitting near? Why did they not talk? I pited them and hoped they might just be in an arugment, which was about the be resolved. But could this be the norm. A marriage that only was a phsycial companion. And inability to communicate. Why do walls build between the two? Why do they have such heavy burden? Let this not be the case in my life. Will and I were talking yesterday about gossip. Will said that gossip ruined community. He said that when people talk about each other people give each other bad looks and glare at one another. He said that girls are bad at this, and used the word “splintered” about a group of girls who are no longer friend because of gossip. There cannot be community with gossip. Gossip doesn’t even have to be coming out of our mouths. Gossip is expressed in our facial expressions and in our private rooms where we muse and get angry about people. We say we are not confrontational people but we go into our rooms and think bad thoughts about people. What is a bad thought? That sounds like a command to a three year old. You are being bad today.

http://www.smartmarriages.com/marriage.quotes.html

I believe all men have this in common: that they want to be happy. They do not all agree on what brings the greatest happiness, but they do all long to have it. And this longing is not bad. It is good. Evil consists in trying to find happiness in ways that displease and dishonor God. Goodness consists in finding happiness in ways that please and honor God. We can conceive of a world in which we might be called upon to do right at the expense of our ultimate happiness. But that is not the world in which we live. God has established this world in such a way that doing good through faith in Christ always leads to greater happiness eventually. We do not live in a world where we must choose between our eternal happiness and God's glory! God has created this world and its moral laws in such a way that the more we choose to glorify God, the happier we will be.

Brian, Hey man. I wanted to encourage you because I know you got alot going on. I prayed for this morning. I woke up this morning stressed and overwhelmed with the amount of studying I havent done and the amount of sitting around I have done. I can learn the things I have commited myself to learning its just a matter of doing it. It's just like prayer life and reading the Word. I know they will produce fruit I must make an inital movement that way then I will see the fruit of it later. Although it seems like some of the little things we do in life are meaningless in comparison to God and our "busy" lives I find they come through as the most important things later. Last night I was talking to a guy named Noah. Noah is probably the only freshmen I do know personally where I can call him up and hang out. He said when he came down here he knew a few Christian guys. Of course he met some through some ministries. He said he wanted to find the Christian guy dynasty down here. I said what? He said he wanted to find the group of guys who were solid and had developed realtionships and tight enough bonds that they had developed a place completely oppostie to the typical places the world sees as social connection or interaction. He said he wanted to find guys who had a good time outside of that. Dynasty is the word that caught my attention. That word says that we care about Christ. I got a picture of guys who arent afraid to pray on the spot and guys who were themselves in Christ and not a Christianized frat boy. A real person who talked with different words from the world and wasnt afriad to challenge others. I knew exactly what he was talking about when he said this. A group of guys who were solidly secure in who they were and secure in thier social scene with other Christian guys where they didint have to go seraching for other people. A group of guys who they wanted to call on Friday night to see what they were doing, instead of finding a comprimise watching movies with Christian people because going downtown isnt the christian thing to do. Noah wanted a dynsasty. I thought of fortress or walls where we stand and of course that fortress is the Lord that we as Christan men must stand on to get our social lives under the supremacy of Christ. Will oru social lives not but increidbly meaninful if we base them on the world and not a cheap example set by secular culture? What im saying is not that I know what this looks like but the beauty of ti could be awesome. Cause if Christ is suprmeem of our whole lives, as Colassions says, then that means social lives too and that is beautiful thing, not a boring watch a movie and not talk to each other thing. Of course what i am talking about is what you talked about community. I didnt want to use that word cause I wanted to put this into words. Count me in for passion. love much love Nate

Brian, Hey bud. Whats going on? I have been thinking about my English education lately. There are so many different roads we can take as being those concerned with language and writing. At UNCW there are about four different routes you can take as an English major. One is literature which you are able read some of the classics and develop your thoughts and writing skills to write about these guys. We have the professional writing route which deals with editing, grammar, style and essay writing classes. This is our version of journalism. Then we have the Creative Writing department. Here is place where people write and then they workshop their work, whether that be writing poetry, nonfiction, or fiction. Then we have the English education people. These are the people who will one day be the Robin Williams type character as we saw off of Dead Poet Society. I honestly do not know of any prep schools that I could teach at like Robin Williams did in that movie, but it would be cool if I did. The education majors are the ones who will eventually get kids into writing and reading literature, hopefully. Is that not their goal as English teachers? To get kids to think independently where they can work on their English skills? Of course the greater goal of all this seems to be to get people to think and then to write about what they believe in. I wonder sometimes why more Christians do not write and tell people what they think. I believe if we had more Christians who actually believed in the Bible and wasn’t trying to be like the world, people would have much more respect for Christians. It seems if we can write about what we truly believe in and tell people why we think Christ is great and why we think that the lifestyle of the Christan is beautiful and the Bible answers the most basic questions of life people will then see why Christ is the way. Tell me what you think Brian about Christian writers. Should more popele write, independently or should they spend mnore time elsewhere? Nate

I think it is necessary that schools beging to teach some type of intelligent design. Evolution has proved to be a shaky theroy in years past and if kids don't get an objective view they will go on believing the evolution is a fact when it is in fact a weak theroy. The sad thing is to me right now so many kids don't even know anything about intelligent design. Obviously everyone has to make a choice but when we have college-age Christians who are quoting thier anthropology professors for why they believe in theistic evolution I think we have a problem. Why is that a problem? Because if students are taking their biology professor;s word for everything then we have uncritical Christians. And when we have uncritical Christians they will listen to anything their professor says. To me it seems like a great majority of kids today want to believe in Creation but they have academia hammering evolutionary theroy in their heads like we've found the missing link. To me Creation is a beautiful thing to believe in. Evolution is a sad, boring weird thing to believe in. That is the big band theroy and macro. Of course it wasnt until my freshmen year I heard anytihng about intelligent design. That is of college, through my church. And that was a rare occasion. So what do we do about this? I believe tha tmore parents should be educated about the faultiness and the fact that evolution is not scienticcally provable. They havent proven it yet. This leaves room for in my opinion, the truth. Creationism. Of course this is not a move against sceince but when we study intelligent design we are using science to glorfy God. The odd thing about this whole arguement is that if we reject science we will never know how faulty the evolutionary theroy is. But if we reserach, we will see that it is not as strong as most people are sadly convinced.