Profusions of Word Vomit

In which our hero attempts to relax by writing *for fun*....


As finals approach, I am feeling a little tired and stressed out. Between regular peeves, difficult/annoying class work, and extra-ordinary experiences; my brain is shot. I'm always about five minutes of the wrong train of thought away from weeping brokenly. It's not that I am generally morose but if, in the course of a day, I become depressed it is difficult for me to return to the happy mean of contentment.

I walk around campus smiling; it's a policy, I smile, people smile back, and that makes me happy. This system is very nice, people recognize you, you improve their day, they improve yours, a very reciprocal relationship. I say 'good morning' including their names if I can, just so they know that I thought their names worth knowing, a small thing for me that means a lot to them.

When I sit in a group of people, I try my darnedest to make them laugh. Nothing makes me happier than to hear other people laugh at me. It often involves a more than slightly eccentric display on my part, but those happen anyway, might as well make them aimed at making them laugh.

These things make me happy. They make long days feel short. They make me feel at home.

Sometimes things like that are all I have. Sometimes the day has collapsed beneath my feet, leaving me breathless and bruised. Sometimes I feel like a fraud, a college student making feints at being a musician; making the same mistakes over and over, failing to follow simple instructions; disappointing those who I want to please the most.

On days like those, I only have three things going for me: My mama, my peeps, and my God. These three keep me sane. When I'm scared, my mama comforts me; when I'm lonely, my peeps cheer me and provide me with happy conversation; when I am lowest, beyond the reach of the aforementioned, then I have my God, comforting me with a Word sweeter than life, and a Peace greater than death.

I've shifted all over the place tonight. My mind is elsewhere. It is now December, as of three minutes before I wrote those words. The year, like men, dwindles and dies, leaving behind the memories and morose, loves and losses. The New year is no more a beginning than it is an ending. Until God sees fit to brings about the new Anno Domini the world will keep spinning much as it always has.
But Christmas is coming. Advent, where we are bold to sing such things as "Prepare the Royal Highway" and "Savior of the Nations" a time of hope and prayer as we look forward to the coming of Christ.

We do not celebrate a cute baby in a manger. We celebrate a King taking up His throne. Enthroning Himself in our flesh. We celebrate a Child that already bore the great weight of our transgression. Before He could raise His holy head, He dragged the cross to Golgatha. There was nothing that we could offer Him, so He offers us more. He leaves us His very Body and Blood, not that we would remember Him, but that His Father would remember Him for our sakes. When the crowd says, "His blood be on us and on our children" we were, by grace, granted just that. Christ marks the doors of our hearts with His Blood, God remembers His loving mercies, and the angel of death passes o'er.

But I am tired. I have been already over long in ending. You have probably been noticing this for some time, yes? But time, like depression or joy, is transitory. Life is not lived in sensations or in seconds, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Anywho, I am finished. Thanks for reading.

A Not at All Spontaneous Rant

In which our hero reflects on a week, a Wednesday, and weeping....

There are no words to express certain frustrations. My peers attempt, through vain repetition of powerful and vulgar words, to express that which their vocabulary cannot grasp. I pride myself, perhaps foolishly, on being able to exhibit frustrations with eloquent verbiage. I am usually successful, having a wide and varied enough base of verbose vestiges to vanquish vile vehemency.

But in some situations my words fail. Syllables trip and fall out of my mouth forming incoherent babble as I grasp at straws, searching for the words. Anger and grief, clouding my thoughts in a morass of anguish and wrathful hatred. I try to think, speak, reason, but I can't, and so I cry.

And in the end, that is all that can be done. You can prevent, or forestall, greater evils, but in the end the infection festers through humankind. In this world that would not know its God, evil prevails, men harm the weak and defenseless, people don't tell the Police, the bad guy gets away, and Entropy drags everything to its inevitable doom.
The world is breaking, broken, lost in Adam's original fall, filled with the descendants of Cain, who in wrath and jealousy murder their brothers.

To cry, that is all that I can do.

I, however, am not the hero of the story. If I were it would be a Greek tragedy, meant to forewarn future heroes from inevitable failure. The Hero comes, not like a knight, in shining armor, but as a servant, wearing the robes of a servant and a crown of thorns. Through Him, I more than conquer.

I said it was a rant didn't I?
Thank you for reading.

I See What You Did There....

In which our Hero reflects on the wisdom of certain class requirements....

I am now several weeks into my classes, they are going very well, I have scored A's on all my tests so far. With this I am well and truly pleased. However even thus so well disposed as I am, I still stress out... this does not probably bode well for the future. This weekend a lot of that tension was at least lightened, if not removed.

My weekend began on Friday night, as many weekends do. I had decided on Wednesday that I wanted to see the Heartland Chamber Chorale Festival Chorus perform "Carmina Burana" with the Ft. Wayne Ballet. I was able, due to the help of a friend, to get a job ushering so that I did not have to pay. I had never heard "Carmina Burana" all the way through from beginning to end, and so, I was blown off my feet. It was an excellent performance, the Ballet was marvelous and the choir sang beautifully.

My weekend continued with Saturday, as weekends must. On Saturday evening, having spent my afternoon doing homework, I attended the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic's season opening concert. Rachmaninoff and Dvorak, absolutely sublime. I came out of that concert tired from just watching the pianist play the Rachmaninoff, feeling generally giddy having heard the spectacular Dvorak concerto.

My weekend is ending with Sunday, as it always will. Today, I went to church and had the supreme joy in participating and listening to the music of the Church, hymn and chant and high-thanksgiving. After church there was a welcome brunch for the Seminary students, a jovial affair, as always. Afterwards I came home and sat around doing nothing until it was time to leave for the French Baroque recital at IPFW. Not nearly as grand scale as either of the other concerts, but definitely well worth listening to; lovely pieces being played on stringed instruments of that time period.

Ah, but you must be saying, "Why? Why go on so long with seemingly no end, and no point, in sight?" and now friends, I will state my hypothesis. The IPFW Department of Music requires that its students attend ten performances in the community every semester. The point being that if you cannot manage that much, you have no business studying music; you have to be interested in music to study it. But I think it serves a dual purpose, I think that it also serves to calm down stressed-out music majors. It is almost impossible for me to imagine feeling stressed at all while sitting and listening to a live performance of some variety. It is a very relaxing experience. You cannot really spend any time worrying if you are busy listening to the music.

But now I must prepare for the week. With a performance on Tuesday and theory picking up in tempo, (yuk yuk) I will have an interesting and busy week ahead of me. At least, as I approach the week, I will have the memory of such beautiful music.

Of Tights and Turkeys

In which our hero wonders at who ever thought that men could, or maybe I should say 'should', wear tights....

This evening, I worked my first real job, a one time contract gig in which I would dress up like a turkey and gallivant around Parkview Field. I thought that it might be hot, I thought it might be slightly strange; but on the whole I thought that at least no matter what I couldn't be embarrassed, due to the mask etc....

Then, I got to see my costume. One word. Tights.

A pair of iridescent orange tights, and a turkey suit that only came halfway down my thighs. My heart almost stopped; I would be walking around waving at people in an outfit in which if I raised my arms above my head, they would be able to see my butt, very much not hidden, due to the orange tights.


I pulled myself together and faced the reality of wearing this costume in public. I finally persuaded myself that, really, it's not any worse than the Egypt costume from Joseph. You can stomach this; plus, there is still the fact that only your family knows it's you with the legs.

And that, it turned out, was my ultimate issue. People could only define anything about me by my legs, which, might I add, are very curvy. Right from the outset, people in the crowd could not decide if I was a guy or a girl; in fact, it was such that one chap offered to take me out for steak, and one chick proposed marriage; they were both, summarily and wordlessly, refused.

I loved walking through the crowd; I would wave, they would give me a half smile, and then they would look down, and they would see my iridescent orange leggings, and their faces would light up in grins.

I rather enjoyed the whole experience though. There were only a few sour moments and those were greatly outweighed by all the little kids, who would smile, wave, give high fives, ask for photos, and even on occasion give me a hug.

So, apart from being flirted with by both men and women, the whole evening went well. Now I am sitting on my living room floor, writing this, eating frozen pizza, and being really glad that no one that saw me in that costume knows my name.

Thank you.

A Light Shining in the Darkness

In which our Hero contemplates Light.

If you have not previously heard, I will now inform you that much of Fort Wayne was, and parts still are, without power, starting from last Friday and continuing, with predictions that power will not be fully restored until this coming Friday.

My family, fortunately, had power returned to our home late Sunday evening; there was much rejoicing.

But that, is all context.


We had spent quite a bit of time on Saturday wondering about the logistics of Sunday's Divine service, with no air conditioning, lighting, organ or, most shockingly, my heart almost stopped, coffee.

By the end of the day, it had been pretty much decided by Pastor and Kantor, that the service would be lead, musically, by the skilled hand of our master trumpeter, with supplemental, violins, piano and choir.

On Sunday morning, it was hot. It was still only early morning when the temperature hit eighty-degrees Fahrenheit.

I attended the eight-o'clock service, as usual, to perform my duties as acolyte.

Between that service and the ten-thirty service later on, I was taken up with a singular idea.

Despite lack of lighting, organ, air conditioning, even, dare I say it, coffee. Nothing was different. My brother served at late service as acolyte while I sang in choir, as per usual. The whole service, from beginning to end, had not changed. There was a baptism, another child of God held safe in the ark of Christendom; the Sermon was preached, brilliantly might I add; the Body and Blood administered to the people. The forgiveness of sins, the Gospel, Christ himself, were all present. The Light shone through the darkness and illuminated the hearts of men, not because we deserved it, or had earned it by showing up despite the lack of air conditioning; but because that's what He does, that is who He Is.

The people departed the service with the words of God placed upon them in the Benediction, and went back to their own homes, whether they had electricity or not, forgiven, having received the Peace of God which passes all understanding placed upon them, the forgiveness of their sins.

Thank you for reading.
 

Time to SOAR... Like a Rock.

In which our Hero contemplates the various ways in which he is deeply, eternally grateful to his gracious and loving parents....

Last Wednesday, I attended SOAR. (Student orientation and registration)

In my preparations for the day, I thought it would be fairly straight forward; as a music major I have only two electives my entire college career so my registration would only consist of filling in the blanks of required classes. As well as anticipating a fairly simple registration process, I was somewhat looking forward to being 'oriented' to the campus. I expected a fairly long day largely consisting of explanations of important locations and activities in campus life....

I was, sorely mistaken concerning SOAR.

The day began at 8:30 am with the obvious beginning of checking in. From there things went fairly smoothly; I had my picture taken for student ID; I wandered around observing various booths, no feast, just booths; My mother and I grabbed some of the complimentary local roaster coffee, the good stuff, and we went to sit down.

We picked a random table and sat down, it was towards the back and we had specifically selected it because it had a convenient set of seats in which my mother would not have to turn her head to watch the presentations. We quickly learned, from a student council member, that the tables were sorted according to what school you were in. When we learned this, we packed up and moved for the small group of tables in the far back corner that were marked with red balloons for the arts department.

We waited the remaining fifteen to twenty minutes until the first presentation, we were in pleasant company, sitting at the the table, making smalltalk, with the only Theater Major attending SOAR on that day. At last it came time for what was slated as three presentations concerning campus life and preparing for entering college.

Here is where the disappointment lies.

For two and a half hours I listened to three different people give the same lecture about responsibility. About how I now had to make my own decisions, determine my own course, find myself, feed myself -I thought that one especially pathetic- and in the midst of all of this, I was informed that, I was actually at college to learn things....

....... uh, yeah.

Those hours were, thankfully, not the most important part of SOAR. After having felt my time wasted, my life slowly oozing out of me as those valuable minutes were spent, I got down to some real orientation. The Arts group walked over to the Fine Arts building and we were given a nice forty minute introduction to the atmosphere of the Arts program. I was grateful for it, and it doesn't hurt when you personally know the faculty member presenting.

After that relevant bit was over, my mother and I headed for lunch. It was a decent lunch, catered fast food being what it is.
My mother and I separated, she to listen to a bunch of concerned parents talk about their 18-year-olds as children, and me, to my class advisory with the head of the music faculty. (Who I also know)

My advising session went well. It largely consisted of finding what time slot for each of the required classes would fit with the others the best. Until, by the end, my total schedule has me one campus from 9 to 5 every weekday.

On the whole, I was very glad to be registered for classes and even more glad to leave as soon as that was finished.

I look forward to starting classes in the Fall, taking classes from professors who expect things of me, and being able to return to them, hopefully, more than they expect. That's my goal anyway, vain as it is.


But now, I must divert my attention to this newly and wonderfully made Pizza... My Mama is awesome.

Thank you for reading.

Rule Brittania!

In which our hero makes everything right with the world as he leads the English peoples to glorious victory against the lesser nations of the world.

The year is 1735; the peoples of the world have seen the fall of the Swedes, the United Provinces, the Portuguese and the Prussians; the peoples of Great Britain have proven themselves the economic, military, and technological power in the world. But this power had two great obstacles; the Brits only had fifteen years to overthrow their greatest adversaries, the Spaniards and the Frenchies, both in Europe and in their American holdings.

In the late end of the year, they made their move. In the single largest coordinated campaign in the history of line warfare. In two different theaters, the Americas and Europe, they attack with a force numbering in the tens of thousands; heavy cavalry, line infantry, 12lb howitzers and cannon, dragoons and a navy built to decide naval combat in the Atlantic for generations to come. They acted decisively, taking Brussels and the Netherlands in a matter of days; meanwhile their American counterpart army took one of the Spanish isles in the Caribbean. The French immediately begged for peace, offering large sums of gold in exchange for preservation. The Brits, being well versed in the art of haggling, bled them for all they were worth and peace was reached, for a time.

The Spaniards however remained resolute, attempting in various and sundry ways to weaken their English opponents, blockading ports and threatening trade routes, but they underestimated the resolve of the English merchant vessels and were summarily vanquished.

And then, four years into the war, treachery. A long time trading partner of the English, Denmark, thinking that they were too distracted by the combat with the Spaniards, declared war on them, hoping to take them by surprise and take their Swedish holdings. But the Danes were foolish in this, for, in secret, within the region of Sweden, the English had assembled a massive army, more than capable of taking Denmark, and, when the time was right, they struck, taking Denmark and all the surrounding territory in a single swift stroke.

Now back across the Atlantic to the American theater.
The English, having taken several territories and now trying to manage the subjugation of the local populace, were not prepared when the Spanish brought up a large, albeit ragamuffin, army from Lower Louisiana. They hit the English army hard and forced them to withdraw into a nearby city, to refit and resupply. The English waited, bringing up reinforcements from Georgia and down from the Iroquois territories, which I believe it is needless to say did not belong to the Iroquois any longer.
After sufficient forces were mustered, they struck, wiping out the Spaniard's unrefined peasant army in one swift stroke.

After that, the Spanish began to fold, losing the Regions of Portugal, Gibraltar, Louisiana, Madrid, Florida, Hispaniola and Cuba.

The French, having been at war with the great English sovereignty off and on, lost France and Quebec, their great strongholds in Europe an America, respectively.

Having achieved their Great goals, the British Empire went on to be the great power in world.


And everybody lived, happily. ever. after....   Amen.

Of Such as Shall Enter Betwixt Mine Ears and Remain Yet a Little While

In which Our hero reflects on nothing of much importance in the stretching of any, even the most exercised and brilliant, imagination....


Of cabbages and kings, that I believe is to be the first course of discourse.... Or, mayhaps not. Mayhaps I shall instead, in a fit of whimsy not uncommon to such as myself, entirely abandon such lines of polite chatter, in lieu of anything interesting to divine by such diversion.

I know. I am vomiting forth varieties of verbiages. But of such are my thoughts now comfortably composed.

Now on to that which hitherto shall be, at least temporarily, thought of as 'the point.'
I have, of late, quite determinedly set my mind onto the procuring and arranging, in such a manner as to appear properly medieval, a large quantity of Lego bricks. This undertaking, not having a root --pronounced, if you please, like 'foot' not 'boot'-- in any commonplace line of contemplation, but rather originating somewhere deep within that complex psyche which God has placed within all men, has placed me, so to speak, between Scylla and Charybdis.

I am, quite positively without any doubt, determined to build within that room, of which I consider to be my place of residence, a scale medieval castle with all its bells, whistles and whatnots of which I can muster thought. It is for this purpose that I did peruse the most common sources for bulk Lego: The Amazon Dot Com, The Lego Dot Com, and The E of Bay.

Quite to the utter stupefaction of my person, the first two did fail to present me with viable options. I was quite depressed when I did consult the final of the three. Astonishing! Since the last time I had consulted this genie of all things used, the quantity of what I was looking for had increased and the increase was accompanied by an equally significant decrease of price.

Now if only I had money for such things.........

On to further topics of talkings.

There shall be, for some time going forward, of its end I cannot attest to a guarantee, a distinct lack of peace within these walls. For some time the household shall suffer as I undertake to pick up the trumpet... I will try, to the best of my ability, to learn quickly so as to prevent the loss of sanity to my dearly beloved family.

Perhaps this is enough. I think I have emptied that of which my head was swimming. It was surprisingly painless.

Thank you for reading once more.

What Is Truth?

In which our hero grows terribly frustrated on the internet....


What is the truth worth to us? The answer to this question, like many others, hurts to think about.

As men, we have been endowed by God with a central understanding of the truth. We are liars, but not by design. Any time that we lie we violate our conscience, even if it is numbed by long abuse. We recognize ours own lies and we are deeply and often permanently hurt by the lies of others.
Men were made to know the truth, to know God and to be known.

This is where the pain comes in.... If we are so naturally inclined to recognize the truth and to abhor deceit, why do we tolerate lies?

Lies in our advertisements, lies in our politicians, lies to each other, lies to ourselves.
This, of course, is most obvious in politics. We continue to support politicians who continuously lie. They lie about themselves, they lie about each other. They lie and we continue to support them.

We learn that a politician lied about his credentials, oh well nobody's perfect; we learn that a politician lied about his residency in a state, oh well he's still better than the other guy.... And on the list goes, for every lie a political excuse.

If we do value the truth, we do not do so outwardly. Of course we need to forgive men who ask forgiveness for there sins, but reconciliation and forgiveness are different things. Just because you forgive a man for lying to you does not mean that you entrust to him those things which are most dear.

So also, we fail to do the opposite of abhorring lies, we do not support and defend those who tell the truth.

The issues in which this is evident are numerous, both inside the political spectrum and inside the church.
We don't want to offend people with the truth. We stand by while people slander those who haven't done wrong and we don't say anything. We cling to that which is socially acceptable and abhor that which offends anybody. We mince words and make the truth no truth, a half truth.

Men are made to know the truth, to know God and be known.

And we do, and we are.

Despite our utter lack of merit or worthiness, we know the truth. This is where we can rest our hope. That, chief of sinners though we are, God, the God of Truth, has loved us, given His Son for us, marked us as His own in Holy Baptism and by His Holy Spirit calls us, enlightens and sanctifies us, that we might be His own.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, I'm frustrated by the lies of politics, my own lies, and the lies which are daily told to thousands by deceived people. But ultimately, I know the truth. God is good and his mercy endureth forever and neither things present, nor things to come can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

Thank you for reading my word vomit. I hope you don't feel like you wasted your time reading it.

No. You're Wrong.

In which our hero avoids the Facebook comment bar like the plague....


If I am particularly possessed of one fault, aside from my vanity, pride, stubbornness etc. It is that I love to argue. By that I do not mean that I actively seek out arguments but if there is something to argue about, I'm there. I am overly argumentative and, often, overly loud. No doubt if you have met me in person you have recognized this. I also have the bad tendency to get frustrated while arguing and to consequently raise my voice to ungodly levels; mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

But, that said, I cannot stand getting in or reading arguments on Facebook/twitter/whatever-other-media-thing-you-use.

It is not that I think that the stuff that is often discussed should not be discussed. However I know that it is all too easy to demonize and dehumanize people on the internet. Even if something is meant to be a discussion between two friends about their personal views, it can quickly turn into two people bickering and writing walls of text at each other. Neither party thinks that they can persuade the other, they both just have to have the last word, and it has to sound cleverer than the other guy's last word.

Sometimes people will post things hoping for an argument. I really can't understand it. Perhaps they are annoyed at someone with whom they have had the same argument. Maybe they are just trying to start a comment war. Either way, someone takes a bite and the days of back and forth start.

Words are excellent things. I think that one of the most important gifts that God has given to man is the ability to read, write, and understand words. Conversation is important, there are times when it is appropriate to discuss ideas and try to reach an understanding or conclusion, or just to learn that you disagree.
One of the problems with the Facebook or blog comment wars is that both parties are set in their ideas, and they both know that the other person is not going to change their mind.

This is not true of normal face to face conversation. Even if neither side agrees on anything, they are less likely to walk away fuming at the other guy for being so obstinate and posting when the argument was 'obviously' over after a comment made at the very beginning. In person it is much easier to argue with a friend and then say to him, "I understand about the food baby Bubba but we're still friends."

When you write an argument down in, relatively, short bursts on the internet it leads to confusion and/or mockery. People willfully misinterpret what people write in order to gain 'points' for their argument. Explaining this misinterpretation takes time, and often while one person is clarifying the other will continue to post word walls. This isn't a one sided thing, most arguments on Facebook include both sides doing this back and forth.

When I watch arguments on Facebook it disturb me. I will watch kind, friendly people speak to each other in a manner which I know they would not use in person.
Once again I will admit that I am deeply guilty of this, a thousand times over. Mea culpa.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps the people I like so well, whom I trust to be so friendly to me, no matter what the context, are actually just waiting for me to say the wrong thing and then to spring on me with nasty commentary and sarcastic jabs.... I hope not, or I'm doomed.

Thank you for reading my excessively long monologue... or is it a soliloquy? Maybe it's just another in a never ending succession of internet arguments....

The Symbolic Symbolised Symbolism!

In which our hero plays video games, watches movies, reads books and visits churches....


I love symbolism, I really do; I think it's from spending the time focusing on all the various pieces of symbolism which I was taught as an Acolyte; the hows and whys of what we do.

I don't really want to talk about any particular symbolism... but I might end up doing so before the end of this post. We will see, shan't we?

I think I'll just name one for each category... maybe.

Starting with video games.
The Elder Scrolls: Perhaps my favorite video game series. It doesn't have a lot of real world related symbolism, but the in game wealth of lore is a treasure trove of meaty game-related symbolism. To a certain extent the games do use certain theological or philosophical ideas and they usually have some meaty symbolism attached.

Movies, movies are a wealth of symbolism. They have all the advantage of art, as regards symbolism, but they can present you with thousands of images and they can also include wonderful dialogue that is loaded with symbolism.
V for Vendetta: As regards symbolism in movies, this is a great film. It's a Frank Miller production, and showcases his excellent artistic flair. The movie's symbolism largely relates to the views espoused by the main characters. However, the depth of that symbolism grows out of every aspect of the film.

Books, which in my opinion are the greatest and simplest medium for conveying symbolism. Words are the catalysts of ideas, symbolism usually reflects a story or an event, but all stories and events must first be expressed in words.
I think I'll just make a list... it would take forever to write something distinct for each book.
To name a few: The Chronicles of Narnia (duh); Ender's Game; Harry Potter; LOTR; Animal Farm; just to name a few... there are a lot.

I also love visiting old, and sometimes new, churches. I won't go into details, but know that if I visit your church, I will immediately begin to judge it according to it's level of theological symbolism; judging both it's architecture and it's decor.

So that's my spiel. Hope you find it fun, or useful, or something.

New Year... Yay...

I feel I should post something about the New Year... But all the best stuff has been said by much wiser and better writers than I.

Therefore, I will not waste my time and yours with a long New Year spiel.

However, I would like to wish everybody a happy New Year, for what it's worth. And I would like to join the aforementioned wiser better writer in thanking God for His abundant grace and mercy to us wretched sinners.

So, Happy New Year, God bless you.