Every day, eight people are murdered in Chihuahua

At around eight thirty p.m., our neighbor was driving her car into her garage when two men came up behind her and pointed loaded machine guns at her. One man barks at her to give her the keys, lifting his machine gun a bit higher to remind her who was in charge. Confused and terrified for her life, she complies and gives up the keys of her car. They take them and drive away into the night.


Eight thirty? In this kind of community? Do criminals really have the audacity nowadays to come while the night is still young and point machine guns into human being's faces so that they can become a bit wealthier? Apparently so. Our neighbors needed that car, probably. Transportation in Chihuahua already sucks. Now, they don't even have a  way to get themselves to work. But does any of this matter to the thieves? No. They are selfish, and they revel in their selfishness.

I remember when Chihuahua was a better place. When I was ten, my mom would lend me ten pesos so that I could roller blade to the nearest tienda to buy candy. I remember when at twelve thirty at night, kids and parents alike were not afraid to walk home alone in the dark. Crime rested back then, and so did we.

Now, things are different. It's no longer safe to get out of my car to lock the gate. I must always be home by sundown if I'm by myself, and I am never to open the doors to strangers. What has happened to the times when people could trust one another? Doesn't anyone want things to go back to the way things were? Perhaps some do. But as for criminals? No. Criminals are chewing away at what little conscience they have left, and are becoming more daring than ever before to get whatever they want, however they want it.
Every day, eight people are murdered in Chihuahua.
This is all very wrong.

After Apple-Picking. A poem by Robert Frost.

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still,

And there's a barrel that I didn't fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much 

of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, 

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep.

I wrote this review while listening to Copeland-- so don't judge. Basically, I add this to my blog simply to record academic progression through my highschool and college career as an English Lit. Major.

Ahem.

I believe this might be about a man who has worked his whole life, putting as much care into his work as he could (30-36), and is now on the verge of his death (8). He has had too much of this work (28-29), though it still hasn’t had enough of him (1-7). He is so sick of it and has put so much of himself into it, that he is afraid that when he closes his eyes to die, he will be haunted with images of his work even in his death (37-38). Perhaps this poem pertains more to Robert Frost, himself, as a poet. Picking every word with as much care as the apple picker picks his apples, well, one could see how the task would trouble his sleep, or even his death. And perhaps as a poet, he imagined that at his death, though he were done with the work of writing poetry, he knew that there were always a few more poems to write, just as there was a “barrel that [the apple picker] didn’t fill.... or two or three apples [he] didn’t pick upon some bough” (3-5).

The Dichotomy

A good friend and teacher of mine responded to my previous blog. I found it very useful and worthy of public...consumption?
The first part of the letter was about the three ways to know God:

There are at leat 3 ways of knowing God:
A. Deductively: looking up passages 
that refer to Him and His works. 
This is the method of systematic 
theology which you covered somtime
 in 9-10th grade. A pastor might use
 this method if he had a series based 
on some theme.


B. Inductively: Drawing conclusions
 based on seeing God in action in the 
scriptures. This is what "the chron" does.
 I think you would get it one of our Bible 
Institutes. A pastor would also teach
 inductively by doing a book study.

C. Personally/experientially:


  God takes what you have been 
putting into your brain through
 A or B study, plus devotions, sermons, 
etc. and lets you reflect on Himself
 and the truth of Who He is within 
the crucible of life; with the Holy Spirit 
coming alongside.


 I sometimes think of this a peeling an onion. 


I learn a new truth about God and/or myself. 
He brings experiences into my life that allow 
me to test and believe it. I succeed or fail, 
and experience the results, and grow thereby.


I conclude I have "learned" a new truth.
 Later God brings other data and experience 
into my life so that I "learn" it again, hopefully
 a bit deeper, at times with a sense of deja vou.
 It's like peeling an onion. Or having one's 
dragon skin removed. 

The letter writer then adds a warning:

I know you are trying to avoid converting the Bible's meanings to fit your theology. You ARE in some danger of doing just that. Remember that knowing God is more than academic. It HAS to be academic, Jesus is the Word, and words are powerful. But it was not enough for Peter to only know it was Jesus walking on water, bidding Him to come. He had to trust that Jesus would keep His word, and that His character was good - this is the essence of faith. Then he had to ACT like what God said was true, and step out of the boat.

The following is my response to his response. I'm not adding this for pride's sake-- though I am proud of some of my complex sentence structures. I was taught an essential truth, I think, a necessary one, and it must be shared. Plus, I am too tired to put it all into blog-form. Copying and pasting is ever so much easier.

This was my response:

Thank you for your warning on attempting to convert the Bible's meanings to fit my own theology. I feel like I have not emphasized my fears of this enough in my blog. I also feel like I did not emphasize my sentiments for the spiritual growth in Christ outside of the "academic" world.

Or perhaps, as you have pointed out, I have created the dichotomy in my mind of 1. God-glorifying, Spiritual Growth in Christ through deepening my faith, and 2. Understanding God through His Word. I think that in my mind I believed that a believer could not do both at the same time.

You've made it clear to me that God had never meant for a dichotomy between growing in Him and studying His word. I suppose this seems rather obvious, but subconsciously, I have always separated the two.

I suppose this has been my dilemma as of late: I am concerned fully with either one or the other, not both at the same time. One day, I put all of myself into the scriptures and apply myself "academically" to please and honor God, searching to know more about Him, yet completely avoid actual communion and communication with God on a sincere, shall I say "living" level.
Other days, I can be so caught up in "living for God," and focusing on Him with every action, that I exclude His Word from my life.

Thank you for showing me that the two must coexist, one just as important as the other, for a growing relationship with God to deepen my faith in Him.
I very much appreciate your outline of the three ways to know God, and I pray that I will be able to take part in each and every one of them in, dare I say, the same day. :)

I hope you have gotten something out of this (Ok, so not as complicated sentence structure as I thought...).

It does seem like elementary stuff, but to me, it was a massive revelation.

Belief

There's a quote by C.S. Lewis that goes something like this: "If Christians desire to legitimately grow in their relationship with God, they must become theologians."
C.S. Lewis wasn't talking about fresh, newly-born Christians suddenly finding out that if you want to follow God, you must become a dried out old man in a tunic, lock yourself in a prison cell, read your Bible day and night, and refuse to eat because that's not the holy thing to do.
Lewis, if you read into the context, was talking more about Christians who take their walk with the Lord seriously. Yes, a relationship with God outside of the books, and dare I say the Bible, are extremely important. God does desires every part of us: our plans, our humor, our thoughts, and our emotions. However, he also desires our minds. God does call us to know Him-- with our emotions and with our minds.
Knowing Him is more than feeling Him in the sunshine and praying to Him under the stars. Yes, those moments are extremely important and essential to a Christian walk, but, well, I think you know what I'm saying. We should learn to know Him with the best of our abilities-- academically, as well.

And I say "academically" because, to me, everything that involves words is academic. I don't mean school work. I mean simply using our brains in a scholarly fashion. This, from now on, is our new definition of academic. We clear? Excellent.

I'm tired of treating my relationship with God like a second job; making time for Him when I think I need Him, which is rare; only being in the relationship because of the spiritual tranquility that I get out of it-- not at all concerning myself with actually glorifying God or knowing Him. I'm tired of being selfish with my walk with God. I'm tired of sinning with my walk with God.

Realizing God's call of every part of me (emphasis on the academic part), I have started studying, and I need help. At the moment I am going through Romans, and I've gotten into some deep stuff already (I'm not even on verse 7 of chapter 1.

Without going any further, I thought it would be a good idea to list what exactly I believe. So I did just this- and you know what happened? Not a single bible verse came up. I found out that everything I had ever based any of my beliefs on has come from things everyone else has discovered from the Bible, not what I've discovered. And I'm kind of at a loss-- the Bible is such a very big book, and this is the first time I've actually seriously considered studying it.
I have my beliefs, which I hold to be true, but I have no basis, and I need help. Here's where you come in. I'll list my beliefs right now. I would love it if you guys could read through them, and if any sort of Bible verse pops up that you think would go with this belief, you could comment the reference below, or you could email me at lilmister25@yahoo.com. I'd absolutely love it if you took part.

You might think I'm trying to convert the Bible's meanings to fit my theology-- but I don't think I am. If there's a reference that pops up that somehow contradicts my belief, I am prepared to seriously consider it. I'm prepared to take the Bible for what it is-- I'm a little afraid of the consequences, but that's not stopping me. If I need to change something in my life because of the Bible, I'm ready.
I am also prepared to take every verse reference seriously. I'll be studying the whole surrounding chapter of that verse, just to understand the context. I'll do word studies. I'm ready. Again, thanks so much for helping out. In the mean time, I will also be looking for verses.
Here are my beliefs.

1. I am God's own creation and am loved VERY much by Him. I am fallen and I constantly sin, but He loves regardless of my actions. However, my sin has created a wall between me in my imperfection and God in His complete perfection.
2. God loves me to the (in my eyes) absurd extent that He made the ultimate sacrifice of sending his son into our human world to live a NECESSARILY perfect life and die on a cross somewhere in Israel to create the perfect sacrifice, choosing death that I might live. He then was burried and rose again on the third day to show the world that it all wasn't some huge prank, but that it was all legitimate and real, that he is the son of God, the Messiah, that his death was not in vain, but did indeed shatter the barrier of sin that separated man-- any man-- from God.
3. If I repent to God for my sin, longing for His forgiveness, and if I believe that all of this legitimately happened, and that Jesus' sacrifice quenched death's thirst for me, and that his sacrifice is the only way to salvation and reconciliation with God-- if I believe this-- I will be reconciled with God, bound for Heaven, that when I die, I will go to Heaven and spend eternity with God.
4. Through his sacrifice, I am freed from sin's ultimate consequences-- eternal damnation.
5. Not only this, but I am freed from living in sin in general. I am no longer forced to drink of that well, but from Jesus' living water, and I can now replace worshipping sin with worshipping God-- for that is all I really am- a worshipper. God, however, has made it possible for me to worship Him.

That's all I have so far. I hold these to be true until proven otherwise. Thank you so much for your time in this. These things are the most important things in the world.

I'm bad with titles

I've noticed a pattern in my blogging and life in general.
I. Introduction- some classy, self-righteous sentence.
   A. The dilemma
         1. Oh no, I used to be a terrible sinner, or something else terrible.
         2. This is so terrible....
   B. Something awesome happens to me.
        1. i.e. I hear a song, write a song, or am touched by a song
        2. Something else awesome happens, usually relating to music
II. I contribute this happening to God trying to teach me a little lesson
III. I am made a better man by this lesson, where, at the moment of writing that blog, am a totally changed person with his head on straight, his rights and wrongs in order, ready to teach this newfound little lesson to the world, because obviously I've mastered it.
IV. Conclusion (This part is unnecessary, but Mr. Nuce always wants a good concluding paragraph... I don't have one, therefore, I put this fourth roman numeral instead).

And there is the paternal outline of my blogs (I use this term incorrectly, I know-- just think of it this time as the adjectival case of 'pattern'.

I just wanted to say that this never actually really happens. I never fully learn lessons, and I don't think God's number one goal in his existence is to teach me little one-a-day lessons, like an over-impulsive piano teacher. And even after "learning" these "lessons," I still mess up in the same area again, and again, and "again." I never, absolutely never, have my head on straight, and very often times I confuse my rights from my wrongs and lefts.

And don't get me wrong about God's not being like an obsessive piano teacher. I know he does teach his children how to love and how to act to be like him-- heck, he wrote a whole book about it called, in several different languages La Biblia, Le Biblerg, The Bible, Wa Hang Hua!!!!, etc.
All I'm saying is that I think God has many more titles than Teacher. Yes, he has been called so. But he has also been called Master, Lord, Sir, Yahwe, Father, etc. He's much more than just a teacher and I think I need to...aha... learn... this.