All Gone / The Spider Cavern Revisited

I know not many of you have an Xbox 360. You should, then we could play together over Xbox Live. Oh well. I recently signed back up for Xbox Live after a free subscription ran out long ago. I wanted to sign back up to keep in touch with friends back in LA.

All 360 games come with a list of "achievements" for the player to beat in the game. Some you automatically get as you progress through the game, others are hidden. Sometimes they are quite tough, other times they are just pointless and time consuming. I usually bypass those because they take very little skill, just time. I had amassed something like 7000 gamer points, which isn't bad. These are saved on a profile in the box called a "gamer tag".

When I signed back up it retrieved the game tag I had when I last played on Xbox Live. I figured it would just update the old one... nope! All my achievements are gone, actually they are back at 650. And it looks like all my saved stuff is gone too, although it is on the console I can't figure out if I can get the saves back.

I know most of you are saying, "It's just video games." Well it's important to me. So, bite me.

While we're talking about games, The Eric brought to my attention the new Diablo 3.
Eric, Jeff, and I played a lot of Diablo 2. Perhaps one of the most memorable moments between Jeff and I happened while playing that game: The Spider Cavern Incident. I may as well tell it. I've nothing better to do.

(If you don't know what a word is click it because I'm not going to type it all out for you "noobs") The Diablo series is a "dungeon crawler". The 3 of us were playing and Jeff and Eric decided to go into a particular dungeon ahead of me, a dungeon known as "The Spider Cavern". We ventured there to get Khalim's Eye for that old pervert Deckard Cain. Now, they should have waited for me because I was playing my Barbarian who is the classic "tank". Instead Jeff goes charging in with his Paladin and he and Eric are almost instantly destroyed. They respawn and again instantly dead. I see this and I decide maybe I shouldn't go in because everytime you die you lose experience points and when your lvl 80 it takes hours of playing to attain a new level. Everytime you die it's like erasing 5 hours of playing. Meanwhile Jeff has died like 5 times and is screaming at me to get in there. Watching the instant death made me feel like my tank of a barbarian wouldn't make it either. Finally, after many more deaths and a slew of expletives directed toward me: "I'm losing so much cupcake experience! Get the cupcake in there! What the cupcake! Cupcake!". I finally went in and killed all the offending spiders with a barely a scratch to show for it: "Oh I guess it wasn't that bad after all". I have never witnessed Jeff so angry in the tenure of our friendship. It was great. Then Blizzard released the 1.10 patch and made my Barbarian useless. I never used him aain after that, thanks Blizz.

World Of Warcraft sucks.

The Rapture Is A Lie

I am writing this not to put people down, but rather to highlight the frightening lack of intellectualism among Christians. For some, the idea that little rational thought and Christianity often go hand in hand is like commenting that the sky s blue. While I do not feel the same about the detractors, they will look on these ramblings as a bit of silliness. It is my job, literally, to mature Christians in their study of the Bible, and in this I will attempt to do so.

Here is a normal conversation I have with someone:
The topic of rapture somehow comes up. Usually I'm being told how to teach something.
Me - "Yea, I don't believe in a rapture."
Dude - *Blank Stare* "... Don't you read the Bible?"
Me - "Yea. Do you?"
Dude - "Yes, but I guess I take the Bible literally."
Me - "I see. So where does the Bible, literally, talk about a rapture?"
Dude - "Ummm..."
Me - "Why don't you go look it up and we'll talk about it next week."

This is not an uncommon response when it comes to most topics, and in all fairness they don't really need to know it off the top of their head. The hope is that they are going to attempt to rigorously defend a position, that they have given it at least a cursory study. If a person has been spoon fed these ideas and told they are necessary to be a Christian, I will usually start off with a history lesson.

Most people are rather shocked when I tell them that the idea of a rapture is a fairly new innovation, being traced back to the 1830's. (Btw, when you're dealing in thousands of years of tradition, 180 years is considered "new".) The idea started in Britain, where it grew in prominence due to the life and work of John Darby. It is unknown whether Darby really came up with the idea himself. There is evidence that suggests it started with a 15 year old girl in Scotland, Margaret MacDonald, who had a vision of a 2-stage return of Jesus during a Benny Hinn style healing craziness. Darby took this idea and expanded on it when he joined up with the group called the "Plymouth Bretheren". Darby was a hit with these kids and he began teaching a "rapture of the saints" to precede Jesus' return.

While all of this was well and good, we really have the Scofield Reference Bible to thank for our predicament. In 1909, the Scofield Bible began printing and would become the weapon of choice to beat unsuspecting unbelievers over the head, especially during the conception and rise of the "Fundamentalists". And wouldn't you know, rapture was right there in the footnotes telling everyone how and what they ought to believe. (WARNING: DO NOT READ THE STUDY BIBLE FOOTNOTES. ATTEMPT TO THINK FOR YOURSELF) Thank goodness for footnotes! It is from this sordid background that we find the ignoble history of the rapture.

Usually a history lesson isn't quite good enough to cause people to relenquish their death grip on the rapture. I continue the teaching lesson by setting out for the king of supposed rapture prooftexts: 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17.
For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Every person who I have said, "Why don't you go look it up and we'll talk about it next week" has come back to me with this passage. To be honest, there are other passages people will attempt to bring up but they all share one very significant similarity.

All supposed rapture proof texts are arguments from silence.


Anyway, back to those Thessalonians. Is that passage talking about rapture? No. Is it really concerned with end times at all? Not really. The people are concerned because their fellow Christians have died and everyone thought Jesus would return before anyone died. The point Paul is trying to make is that whether alive or dead, neither is better than the other because all go together to be with Jesus. But we go to meet Jesus in the "air"... huh? That's where Jesus went, if he had gone to Chicago it would say they meet him in Chicago. But we're going to be among the "clouds"... huh? Sure. Are the clouds heaven? Do we stay in the clouds? There are more quesions than answers if you take this to be a rapture text. Not to mention the whole "meet" word in the Greek was the same word used to describe a dignitary who came from a far away land to your country. You then sent men to meet the coming dignitary before they reached your city. What happened next? Did they stay out there? No. Did they go back with the dignitary? No. They escorted the dignitary back to their city. If anything this passage is directly contradicting anything rapture related.

I know there are more passages. Eric and I were talking about this a while ago and he asked me about the Thessalonians passage and what I said about it goes for most rapture proof-texts: If you didn't already have an understanding of what rapture is, would you make the connection that this is teaching Jesus will come to earth, take christians to heaven as a sort of holding tank, then wait around and come back (btw how do you wait around outside of time)? Ridiculous.

My Rock'N'Roll Lifestyle

Rachelle comes home from work and asks what I did today. The answer has been the same the last couple weeks: Watching the Euro Cup in HD and reading. It's been pretty great.

When we decided to move, I didn't want to get any cable or direct tv. Rachelle did though, and I understand that she likes to relax after a long day of work by watching some of her favorite shows. I certainly didn't want to get Tivo, not because I don't like them per se, but because I don't want any machine that helps me watch more TV than I already do. But I have to say that I really have been enjoying the HD channels I never had before for 2 reasons. They look amazing, I can't even tell I'm watching TV instead of a dvd. And there are only about 15 channels; if there aren't anything on those channels I just turn it off. It's great.











The best has been the Euro Cup. You can see the blades of grass on the pitch. Looking forward to the final match between Germany and Spain this Sunday.


Like I said, the only other thing I've really been doing is reading. That's been great too just because my reading has always been forced due to school. Now I get to read what I want to or books I feel would be more helpful in my immediate work.



















I recently finished this book, which was very helpful in framing my goals and intentions when I get into my hospital chaplaincy work. Kubler-Ross was a pioneer in the field of thanatology and the insights she presents are invaluable. I think the most powerful lesson I took from this book was how to talk to children about death. She makes the point that when death is explained to a child either "sleep" is used as an example causing children to believe they will return, or parents simply say "they went to be with Jesus" and how many children view that as a non-answer parents are prone to give, such as "because I said so". Kubler-Ross uses "symbolic language" to honestly deal with the situation and answer the questions they may have.



















I think Jeff probably read this once a year when we were in college, maybe more. I had always wanted to give it a whirl and finally I had the time. I enjoyed it. Read it in just a day and a half. Despite it's futuristic bent/alien war themes it really wasn't as science fiction-y as I thought it would be. More of a war/psychology story set in the future. I did like how Card flushed out the Peter and Valentine characters more. I thought they were only going to be used in the beginning to contrast with Ender but they ended up having a larger role than simply that.



















The sequel to Ender's Game, the two have very little in common other than a changed Ender who was praised in the first book as a hero is now considered a mass murderer. Now Ender must save a new alien species and give a new beginning to the one he destroyed. I thought it was pretty good. I didn't read it as fast as the previous but it still kept my attention. I may continue reading the rest of the series at some point, but for now I have moved on to other fare.

So yea, this is what I do right now. Oh and think heretical thoughts. They're revolving around inerrancy at the moment.

Incoming Threadless

My first San Diego shipment of Threadless shirts are on the way.

Jonah And The Technicolor Whale











The LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights. From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. He said: "In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry."

This shirt is great. Great whimsical use of the color, almost like the sinews of the whale are a rainbow masterpiece. The whale's mouth and eye look straight out of the 70's with a huge grin after swallowing up the little Hebrew. Everything's better in technicolor.

Spiritual Symphony Fin


















I have to say, I thought a little while on this one. Not whether I liked it or not, but how people might react to it. Jesus and Moses back to back on dueling guitars, Buddah blissfully playing his "Kasio", and Ganesh rockin' a 3 arm and 1 trunk drum solo. Some people will look at this and see syncretism. I look at it and see the world as it is, with many different faiths. And while I may not believe in all of them, they make up the cultural and spiritual landscape of the people I come in contact with everyday. And through that I understand my fellow man a little more.

Deforestation

















One of the things I have always disagreed with "artsy" people about is that we find our own meaning in the art itself. Bollocks, I say. The only time we find our own meaning is when the author/artist isn't there to tell us what their original thought was. And if they have no original thought, then it isn't very good at all because there is no message to begin with.

I thought I would take the incorrect artists up on their pursuit of no meaning and I gave this a different meaning than was intended. The artist sees this as a sad state of the environment, with rainforests being destroyed everyday. I say that's looking at the glass half empty. I see this and I say, "There is still so many trees for us to cut down!" Soon the world will be one beautiful gray slab of concrete, especially Oregon. That's right Jeff, they're all going down.

Funkalicious














Once my dream of no more trees is realized (and it will be realized), we will all be forced to wear suits pumping pure oxygen. The excess of oxygen will cause us to see mystical technicolor shadows following us around. It will be beautiful and funky. Who wouldn't want to destroy all the trees for that?

The End Of May

The past few weeks have been a flurry of activity.

Rachelle graduated with her Masters of Science in Nursing.














She will now be rockin' the NICU of Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women as the Clinical Nurse Specialist.




















I graduated with my Masters of Divinity. I will now be rockin' the trophy husband lifestyle full-time!












Actually, I just heard back from the chaplains at Rady Children's Hospital and they offered me the internship over there. I have no idea how that happened but I'm excited nonetheless. Rachelle's hospital and this one are about 20 yards away from each other. Awesomeness.















I spoke one last time at the Wacc High School service. There wasn't as many people as normal due to the holiday weekend, but it was still great to see everyone I did. If you are so inclined, you may listen here.

The movers came, hauled away all our stuff and then had to lug it up two flights of stairs to our new apartment. The whole process plus driving took about 12 hours. Hiring those movers was some of the best money I have ever spent! If it hadn't been for them, Eric and I would have been moving most the stuff and then, I daresay, he and I wouldn't be friends anymore. Not sure about Eric, but I would hate any person who asked me to willingly go through what they did.

Had the pleasure of meeting my first neighbor during the move. She announced her "welcome" with repeated honkings. The moving truck had partially blocked her garage and she sat behind it wailing on the horn, driving around the lot, and then honking some more. When the mover asked if he could guide her in, she refused because she had to "drive straight in". I then introduced myself as her new neighbor and tried to shake her hand, which she eyed warily not wanting to touch me. I asked if it were at all possible for her to park in the myriad of spots a mere 2 feet away, alas that was too much to ask. We moved the truck so she could drive "straight in" to avoid her calling the rental office because they would "make you move". A fine woman.

Boxes are being unpacked, but still much to do.