Global Empire of Wantoness

The title is supposed to read with that deep echoing voice you hear on the cheesy sales commercials, "GLOBAL EMPIRE OF WANTONESS!!!!" Anyway I was inspired by temporarily Spanish friend, Tito, to the following observations.

Our parents, most of them, seem to obsessed with the idea of their kids, all of us, graduating college and going on to high paying jobs. We, for the most part, seem to be quite upset by the notion and don't want to comply.

Our present generational culture reminds me of the elites of the Enlightenment Period. If you're a literary fellow, we remind me of a rising nation of Pierre Bezuhovs. Pierre was a rich bastard son of a dying political God of Tolstoy's Russia in War and Peace. Pierre enters the epic returning from his educational travels that many rich kids were sent on and partook of many times in their lives. These trips were born of education, need for adventure, and curiosity. Pierre came back unsettled by the state of things and wanted to change everything wrong about the society he was in, which consisted of anything he didn't agree with. So he went on some adventures and changed a few obvious things that were related to him. Now imagine an entire country, like the US, full of Pierres. Creepy.

Except our need for adventure and curiosity is constantly being side tracked by entertainment; TV, movies, video games, overpowering culture shifts. So some of our generation are starting to grow old with that unsatisfied need to be righteous and make a difference. Some of us though are taking our chances and going for it. Traveling, studying abroad, grad school, for many christians in college station they get there adventure from marriage (i may have to explain that later, i'm sure some people will be pissed at that one, hehehe). Ultimately though it's only the Pierres, or the rich that get to take those chances. You won't see any ghetto kids traveling the world.

You see we're no the first world empire. We just happen to be the only one that is truly global and truly in control. The travelers and educated of the Roman's were from Rome or at least the Italian peninsula. During the Enlightenment it was Europe the headed the World, Thus the sophisticates were all from Europe. Now it's America. We are so lost in the middle of the richest of the world that we don't even know it. We are the elites, and we don't see it. Imagine how many people would be driven to action by sheer boredom if we lived with out all of the entertainment we are constantly bombarded with.

Our age also plays a factor. We're at the point where we want experience more than anything. We have this notion that there is so much more in the proverbial "out there" than we've got here. Which in a way is true, but ultimately I think it's all the same stuff just with different frosting (culture and setting). I could be wrong though, I've never really been in the proverbial "out there".

The "church", on the other hand I think is going through this awful "pubescent" stage. It's basically making an ass of itself and all the while thinking it's getting cooler and cooler. The body of Christ is always maturing so the growing pains will be consistent until we reach that blessed day when Christ presents us to the Father as a mature man. I think this "pubescent" stage is stemming from a few things:

1. Our culture is obsessed with being young, so the "church", being extremely cultural, is constantly having to stay young.
2. Our generation has an unsatisfiable hunger for something unknown, so the frustration with the church, and it's need for solidarity, is understandable. Imagine a pregnant woman's frustration at her blind and deaf husband's inability to acquire that perfect food that satisfies that elusive craving that she herself can not identify.
3. Our generation doesn't know what church is so it really doesn't know what it wants. It wants church but doesn't know it. We've seen from our parents that money doesn't get happiness and that the hippie lifestyle isn't the best either. Then we turn around and are faced with the boredom and constraint of "church" life that comes after college church life and, all of a sudden we see the next eighty years of their life laid out before us and it scares us. The "emergent" church is, from my view point, continuation of college service for people who just can't get over it.

Our country has a rich history of adventure and change, not so much a rich present though. I think it comes somewhat with the rising global economy, some with the elite world status that Americans are born with, and the separation between plebs and the government that has taken place over the past twenty to thirty years. Do college students have as much impact on the government today as our parents did in their day, no.

In short our parents see in us the chance to live all the dreams they fought for and believed in, and all we see is the staleness of living someone else's dreams. We've seen all the world has to offer and know there's no lasting fulfillment there. We think we've seen what the church has to offer, and nothing. But oh that blessed day when the church is tested with fire and all the shit burns away. We will be left with very little gold and a great many trials. I think that day is approaching.

Also I think it's important to realized there is a chronic satisfaction in our generation with surface knowledge. We have this tendency to learn something for twenty minutes and claim we know it. This comes from the History and Discovery channels, among other stuff of course. Man (clutching chest) that one hurt, I love those channels. We tend not to ponder the deeps of things. How many married couples have I heard of being mentored by a couple that's been married for ten or fifteen years. How about being married for fifty years, that's the guy I want advice from.

Whew!!!! this is long. I think I'll stop. I'm starting to sweat. You guys let me know where I went wrong and I'll try to explain. Or I may just say "touche good sir/madam, touche." I'll close with some song lyrics by Mike Doughty.

"What is my life without my heart at risk?
When will I love someone
When will someone be mine
Forty grand in the hole
I'm gonna open it up and
Let my yearning, shine"

So...?

Alright, usually I'm not a very politically oriented or agitated person, but lately I've taken a much keener interest due to my growing interest in environmental issues. I also think getting older has it's affect. I'm definitely not saying I'm getting old, at all. I won't be old till I'm 70 or something, I mean why be old until you have no other choice.

Anyway, I watched the state of the union. The only thing more uncaptivating was the Democratic response. Wow!! Boring!! I don't just mean in a political way. There was no passion, no ardor, no violent uncontrolled emotion in either one of the speeches. When I hear the leader of the most powerful nation of the face of the earth tell his constituents (me and you) the state of our nation and where he intends to take it, I expect some gusto. If he's not excited about where he's taking the nation why should I be? I'm not to happy with him right now anyway. He cut my pell grants, and many others pell grants as well. Moreover he was pretty frikin vague when it came to domestic issues, especially environmental issues. He started to say what I wanted to hear, and then left me hangin.

Lastly, those democrats need to have some rebuilding years crammed into the short amount of time before the next election. They really suck. Their response to the State of the Union reeked of vagueness, unpreparedness, carelessness with opportunity, and ultimately the attitude of "you know what, I'm a bureaucrat, I've got this power and we just really don't care about all you layman. So here is some lackadaisical political jargon, go chew on it for a while." I was almost ready to consider voting democrat next time, if I vote, by the end of the state of the union. Then the democrats opened dumb fat mouths and completely turned me off.

Most of all I just felt like he didn't say very much of anything. At least not anything of substance. I think maybe a powerpoint would have helped, or maybe something interactive. I feel like he was trying to pull a fast one on me, with all his jargon and pleas for liberty and bipartisanship.

Lastly the democrats not cheering at most of the stuff he said and then cheering when he brought up something that pissed him off was so annoying and aggrivating. I've seen more considerate behavior from a room full of five years olds.

I realize I may be politically naive. I know my interests and concerns, and more over I know people who got their shit together when I see em, and tonight I just don't feel like I saw too many.

"He Will Give Them Death, and They WIll Love Him For It"

I have two of the most fantastic jobs a college student could ask for. First of all I work at the climbing wall in the rec center. Love to climb, love the people, love the work, what else is there. I am also an RA at a dorm for three foreign exchange students from Korea that attend a local private high school. I get paid a great deal. Pay is pretty much like salary, not based on hours. I get paid to sleep, study, play video games and watch TV. This "dorm" is actually an apartment. I am responsible for making sure these guys eat, don't kill themselves, and have a ride. But I am starting to really hate this job. Solely because of the TV and video games. Entertainment is the true opium of the masses, and I am a junky.

I'm a little depressed right now. Mainly because I feel like I completely wasted a day. I spent almost all day watching television. I watched television because I swore to myself I wasn't going to play video games. I did that because the other night I spent close to eight straight hours playing. That's rediculous!!! And I hate it!!!

Thoughts on video games:

I don't have myself completely convinced yet but i'm starting to think that video games are sitting the fence between sin and temptation. Playing video games is the biggest waste of time currently on the earth. It can be stressfull, very time consuming, pointless, tiring, mind numbing, degrading, and it goes on. Also they're not real. A person participates in nothing real by playing video games. They're a lazy form of immagination. A person could sit down and write a story, paint a picture, build something, or even follow some logically deduced pattern of thought to the next great epaphany that will change mankind as we know it. Or you can sit in front of a television manipulating programmed colors that immatate some romantic version of life that never really exists. They leave no room for true creativity. The only games I've ever really enjoyed are the sports games. I could play sports, or write about them, experience them, coach them, or any other number of things concerning them, but I would never achieve the greatness in the real world that I do on MVP Baseball 2006. In that fake world I an owner, manager, and star third baseman of the Houston Astros. But it does absolutely nothing for me in this world. You know the world I actually live in.

There is also something hypnotizing about them. They grab your attention like a naked person would. You just can't stop playing/looking. What is that? They are also a practice in over indulgence and superficiality. Grand Theft Auto? All the games by the rap artists? Fantasy games?

Finally, concerning video games, there is an obvious trend of guys loving them, and girls just not getting it. Granted there are a few girls and guys who bend from the norm, but I'm not talking about them. Why is it that guys are so drawn to them? Why am I? Let's take a look, here's what I've noticed?

1. Guys who are addicted to sports games (me) usually have some sporting failure, or unfulfilled need in his involvement in the past or presenct with some kind of sport.

2. It's usually weak, nerdy, pushover, timid, meek guys who love the shooter games and fantasy games. Granted all guys usually like them, myself included, but the obsessive ones are the afore mentioned ones.

3. The only video game I've ever seen girls really like and enjoy, without having guy friends that enjoyed them first are those stinkin dance/disco video games.

Conclusion: Video games are a perverted substitution for the real thing. Pushovers can finally lash out and destroy all who annoy. Old athletes, normal joes, and failed athletes may finally achieve that athletic god-like status and infamy of sports icons. The do gooder can finally steal a car pick up a prostitute and go on a cop killing rampage. Women can finally dance and operated how rap video's say they should. Basicly it creates a world of absolute control in which a man can overcome his weakness and rule his neighbors. Or would it be easier to say where man can rule, be great, conquer, take, achieve, command, fight, and be brave. It's a filler for the things most guys want but lack, and are told by the world that to be a man one must have. Video games are huge with youth groups, why? because "churches" today breed such a confusing, vague, weak image of a MAN, that video games serve as an arena in which little boys can act the man. In church girls are mainly fed the message "you are enough just the way God made you", guys get the "you were made to lead, be in charge, and set the example". I think that is why guys like the video games and girls just don't care that much. Video game play to a falling short attitude that society is constantly throwing in their faces. I also think that's whay girls follow the models, actesses, and female pop stars so closely; could be wrong about that though. I hate video games, but like all other temptation, my flesh yearns for them.

Television: television is the modern day arena to the coliseum. And like caesar it is used to rule. Most people base their political, fashion, artistic, religious, historical, and moral opinions on what is on TV.

It's scary how much the TV programming mirrors american culture. Get as much as you can out of the time your have. We have hundreds and hundreds of channels, and TV's that cater to watching more than one at a time and can record what your missing on top of that. There are channels for every interest immaginable. More than that, it's beautiful. When was the last time one saw and ugly person, background, or overall picture display on television. That's it's captivating power. Constant stimulation. A big shiny object. Sure you can watch the history channel and try to feel good about it, but even those programs are made to sell. There is even a channel that reports what is on your TV. I hate TV too.

Video games and TV are disgusting because to me they represent a sort of second hand disgusting reality. TV and video games mainly project what humanity would make of the world if given the opportunity. I feeds the soul the desires whispered to it by one's flesh. My friends I think most people look at TV's and video games much like Adam and Eve saw that apple. Looks cool, represents something we're not made for, something that should not be, and leaves us unfulfilled.

I'm sorry for the somber attitude, but like I said I've been in front of the TV all day, staring at the apple, and spoon fed the wants of the flesh and the whole time knowing that they aren't real, and wanting them anyway.

If you don't understand the title you need to watch Gladiator again.

Initiative thoughts

So I thought of something the other day while I was reading for my environmental sociology class. These thoughts are not finished yet so don't be disappointed at there basic natures.

Environmental studies are going through somewhat of a pubescent stage. Currently a paradigm shift is taking place concerning the ways humanity has come to view it's relationship with the natural environment. Most have come to view the environment in ways that the romantics have instructed us. Something vastly different and untamed from our own places on the earth. Humans are not exactly at home in nature, we belong in groups of humans and in the dwellings we have come to know throughout history. At the same time we can not do without nature. We get our food from nature, all of our resources for that matter, and nature is one of the most sought after arenas of relaxation and play (parks, skiing, lakes, hiking, climbing, hunting, etc...). So we need it but we are in a way estranged from it. Views as such have led to nature being looked upon as frontier that must be explored and conquered, adventure ridden, and dangerous. Ultimately we have separated ourselves from it to such an extent that we view nature as something other than ourselves.

These views have led to many of our resource and environmental problems that we face today. There are many reasons why and many ways in how we have done it. Some of which are the romantics, urbanization, industrialism, and consumerism. The shift that is taking place is an epiphany of our true places within the natural world, that being an actual member of the natural world and no less so than lions, and tigers, and bears, OH MY. Some of us eat fish, but instead of getting it from the river like the noble bear we buy it at a restaurant or at the supermarket. We are never really allowed to see the impact on the natural world or our involvement in it. These thoughts could go on and on and on, but I'm gonna stop here because what I really want to talk about is the church. There are similarities here that I find interesting.

First of all Church has been viewed for a long time now as something we go to, or participate in. I go on sudays, I can have fun there, and I get stuff I need there. The church in this view, like nature, becomes something otherly. It becomes a place, or an avenue, or an ends to a means, a supplier. However according to the bible, we are the church, we can't leave it, the body, anymore than my finger could one day decide to leave my hand. I think the most startling parallel I noticed was that this view of church also comes from having so much stuff in between. For fish we have fisherman, packing companies, shipping companies, inspection companies, restaurants and supermarkets. Now we have sanctuaries, and seminaries, and specific days, and policies, and payments to be maid, and doctrines, and an appropriateness of order and place in ones participation.

I'm not saying it's bad to go to sunday moring service anymore than it is to go to the HEB and get some salmon to throw on the grill. I am saying though that to be good stewards of the environment you have to appreciate the reality of your place in it and the impact you can have on it. I feel the same way for the body.

Lastly there is a greatness in being in the "wild" that many therapeutic firms, correctional programs, and ministries have begun to notice. They bring people out into the wilderness to get some perspective. I know I've been apart of it, and there is an undeniable power to felt by being out in the open, being exposed to elements and subject to forces that you have little control over. Likewise with the body. I've started going to sunday morning service again, albeit a...interesting one, but there is no substitution for the one on one time with my brothers and sisters and especially with the father. You just can't beat the real thing.

Fours

Yes, after weeks of reading other people's 4's I've been tagged! whooooo-h000000. . . i'm not really that excited but here goes . . .

4 jobs i've had that won't go back to

1.Sweet Eugene's-bad pay, bad hours, annoying christian culture junkies and the local witch craft group.
2.Foot Locker-great pay, buuuut...no
3.Young Life Student Staff-got paid by asking people to send money to YL, they took a cut and I didn't really get anything???
4. Black Market Body Parts Smuggler-no comment

4 movies i've watched on repeat

1.Crash

2.Rounders
3.Gladiator
4.Last of the Mohicans

4 TV shows

1.Best Damn Sports Show Ever
2.Family Guy
3.X-men and batman cartoons
4.Scrubs

Oh yeah in yo4ur face Mol Jr...I mean3 Lost...dang it!!

4 Vacation's I'd like

1. Assend Everest
2.Safari the entire continent of Africa
3.A years stay in the white house
4.Virgin Islands

4 websites besides blogs i visit daily

1.Major League Baseball.com
2.anything Google
3.Aggieland Federal Credit Union
4.facebook

Lust Worthy Foods
1. Whataburger
2.Odwalla Superfood
3.Carne Guizada from Los Nortenos
4.beer

Changes to my house

1.floor length side by side urinals
2.computer from startrek to tell me everthing
3.time warp so that no time passes outside when i'm inside
4.my own rockwall

4 beers and people i would drink them with

1. Ziegen Bock-the green girl from the C.S Lewis book Perelandra
2. Dos Equis Amber-Kate Beckinsale
3. Shiner Bock-Job from the book of Job
4. Kegs of all three-all the guys who expected their names to be on this list

4 things that should have been lists

1. top 4 dream jobs
2. top 4 things to do with 4 legal pardons
3. top 4 country's to own
4. top four reasons why texas should become it's own country

4 tags

i don't really know many other people with blogs so if you want to go ahead and get crazy with it, but let me know so i can look

Hey guys...its a...poem

Alright, now everyone has permission to poke fun, as long as your honest, I usually don't write poems and I would definitely never think to publish it. But the very idea of publishing a poem that I had written made me scared, and I hate being dictated be fear. I'll be a little embarrassed if it sucks, but at least I didn't not do it our of fear.

I’ve been walking for years now

Down streets of pious contention

The stress is killing my spitits

I can’t seem to nail down the truth

These streets are violent and jaded

Neath rivers with currents of cups

That shine on the edges on midnight lamps

Then taint and dry all their contents up

I will retreat to the city walls

It’s this city’s first line of defense

Against the advances of wild kingdom

And all that doesn’t make sense

Or stand in line with the doctrine

That’s as varied as the cobble stone streets

They keep us safe from each other

And from the dangers of walking alone

I had been sitting up so high then

Trying to stand on my own

Moving as the wind would please

I started to rattle the stones

All the rulers of city

Then Gathered in force at the wall

They found me shaking with pleasure

It was then that I started to fall

I’ve been walking now for hours

On the wrong side of the city wall

I fell from one of the towers

How I fell I just won’t recall

Out here the wind blows harder

And the elements have taken hold

But I feel no need for shelter

I somehow know that I’m at home

This man he came and woke me

With whispers and gentle hands

He teaches to live in the wilderness

He teaches to conquer the lands

I’ve been walking for years now

Outside those city walls

We wait at the gates every morning

Looking for those who don’t need the fall

In the evening we search the wilderness

For those who are lost we sing and call

Of the attraction, and peace, and tenderness

Of the man who dragged me down off the wall

Sometimes he walks the walls with me

We poke fun at the absurdity

But all the while we’er yearning

For just one more who would fall free

My Wisdom is Gone, But My Face is Fine

For all you how were concerned the operation went better than expected. There were a few plusses going into the operation. Firts of all they oral surgeons were not going to have to slice my jaw open and chop up my teeth into little pieces just to get them out. Secondly I had the great privelage of having my first IV.

I went in at 10:30 in the AM. By 10:40 I was prepped and being guided into the operating room. I was rather surprised though at how many nurses there were. I followed one nurse into the operatin room, and then nine nurses followed me in. I was going to make some silly remark about how the ladies always follow, but I thought why upset the people who are going to have me strapped in a chair and unconcious for as long as they please, and with drills and stuff. So I hopped in the chair...they took the blood pressure, which was shockingly low...then the surgeon came in, also a lady, and got the IV ready. The last coherent memory I have is of one nurse hitting my left arm while the surgeon put the IV in. I looked at the nurse quizzicaly and she said "this is to distract you". Of course then I looked over just in time to see the IV go in. Needles don't bother me so I didn't care. Me last thoughts though were "i wonder if that hitting the other arm thing works on people with IQ's higher than 50. I doubt it would even work on my dog. Hmmm, wonder what the IV's gonna feel like when it starts to kick in".

Then I woke up at home. My mom was waking me to take my first dose of hydro-whatever. I was shocked and awed. Between passin out and waking at home I vaguely remember the nurses telling me that they were lifting my feet up for the wheel chair foot rests, why they were telling I don't know, maybe I asked. I also remember hearing them talk to to my mom as they put me in the car. What I remember most clearly is responding to some question from my mom with "it was so great, better than expected". Then I woke up at home. Those three memories weren't even real memories. I could only hear and feel certain things, couldn't see a thing.

In short the IV was wonderful, I didn't even get groggy. Next thing I know I'm at home sippin on gatorade and knocking back some hydro-whatevers. My jaw didn't even hurt post-op. They ached a little when I stopped poppin pain killers, but even now they already have that itchy-achey-jaw feeling that almost feels good.

Getting my wisdoms pulled this time (uppers) was worlds better than last time (lowers). I'm out $250 for the whole thing, but i'd pay that much for the IV alone. I applaude the entire staff involved, all of them, how ever many there were. I do wish I had had a friend there to film the whole thing, I think the film would have been really funny. I especially wish I had footage of the transfer from table to wheel chair. Maybe that's why there were so many nurses. I bet one of them copped a feel.

Anyway that's my story. Give a shout out to my friends abroad. Tim-ee-oh-ho! Wookie! and Nando! Peace brother travel safely.

my own funeral

Following my good friend mark's example I will now lay out my own funeral plans.

most important is that I want my body to be strapped to a giant cross shaped rocket. The cross shaped rocket, or the SSS Felix (Solar Sword of Salvation), will by lined with billion candle strobe lights. Within a week after I pass I will be strapped to the SSS Felix and shot into space. Not too far into space, just far enough to stay in orbit for a couple generations of Felix's. Also close enough so that after a couple generations the earth's gravity sucks me back in and I finally go out as a meteor.

This way I can orbit the earth a giant blinking cross. My relatives can just tell the young kids "see grandpa's not dead his on a mission trip to final frontier". I may even get some sort of crazy adventist psycho hippies to predict Armageddon according to my re-entry date.

If I have any money left it's to go into a fund to create brewing company that brews great beer and prints gospel tracts on all of it's labels.

that's all I come up with so far, but I think I have plenty more time to think on it. hope everyone caught the sarcasm.