Who needs sleeping pills when you can blog?

Let me just start off by saying that right now I can't sleep, so I'm blogging. Therefore, if this blog is incoherent or rambling or possibly even heretical, please attribute it to the fact that I am significantly drowsy, but not enough to drift off to sleep. My goal is to form a conglomerate of ideas I've had for blogs over the past couple of days, if they make any sense at all.

First, let me tell you about a sort of revelation I had while driving to church early Sunday morning. I was going down pretty early because I'm in training for the in-service security (basically MacArthur's bodyguard). I was driving on the 14 south, where it merges into the 5 south, and I was watching the sun rise over the hills to the West, and it hit me... this is real.

There's a scene in the 1986 cult classic ¡Three Amigos! (one of my all-time favorite movies), starring Martin Short, Chevy Chase, and Steve Martin, in which the three main characters, Ned Needelander, Dusty Bottoms, and Lucky Day (who are all out-of-work silent-western-film movie stars) realize that they are not in Mexico to put on a live performance, but are actually in Mexico because they were hired to fight off the infamous El Guapo and his gang. This revelation comes with a bang, literally, when Lucky is shot in his left shoulder (surprisingly, the wound is completely healed by the next scene). Irate that a fellow actor would actually use real bullets in what the Amigos think is a performace, Lucky storms up to his assailant, El Guapo's right-hand-man Jefe, and demands to see his gun. Lucky then begins to threaten retribution on Jefe, until it dawns on him.... this is no performance. Slowly, he walks back to Ned and Dusty and breaks the news: "This is real. This... this is real." The three actors from Hollywood begin to cry. "They are going to kill us!" "What am I doing in Mexico?" "I've been shot already!"

This is kinda how I felt Sunday morning. I mean, I've believed that God is totally real since Jr. High, but the sheer reality of what I believe hit me Sunday morning. This is not all a ruse. This is not some tradition. There is a reason I see people all around me giving their all for the ministry. There is a reason I see changed lives. There is a reason I see a change in me from who I was only a few years ago. This is real. God is real. This whole Christianity thing... it's real.

Dwell on that. Rejoice in it.




A couple other things I wanted to blog on came from what I read in C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. Early on in the book, the narrator witnessed a conversation between a "ghost" of Hell and a "Spirit" of Heaven. The ghost is a blue collar working class man, apparently satisfied in his own accomplishments, thank you very much. The Spirit he is talking to is someone he knew in life, a person he felt he was far superior to. The spirit is imploring the ghost to accept salvation, but the supposedly self-sufficient ghost responds, "What do you keep on arguing for? I'm only telling you the sort of chap I am. I only want my rights. I'm not asking for anybody's bleeding charity." The Spirit comes right back and says to the ghost, "Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought."

There is no really huge divine epiphany in that statement... if you have any knowledge of the Gospel, you know what the Spirit referred to when he said "Bleeding Charity." I just thought it was cool how Lewis used a play on words to accurately say what Christ's sacrifice is. Bleeding Charity. I really like that description.

Another thing that has stuck in my mind from reading The Great Divorce is a scene in which a ghost from Hell is limping his way through the foothills of Heaven with a little red lizard on his shoulder. The miserable Ghost is making his way back to Hell with the lizard whispering in his ear the whole way when he is stopped by an angelic being. The being makes an offer and the ghost is faced with a choice: the being can either let Ghost continue on his way to hell, following the lizard's promptings; or the Ghost can let the being kill the lizard, although great pain will come to the ghost with the death of the lizard. After much fretting and near backsliding and even swearing, the Ghost implores the being to kill the lizard. The being does so, and indeed, immense pain befalls the ghost. But both the corpse of the lizard and the pathetic Ghost are wondrously transformed. The dead lizard becomes a living beautiful white horse and the Ghost becomes a Spirit of heaven. Of course, we see in this example that this is Lewis' way of trying to convey what surrendering all to Christ looks like... but I think the example could also be used for Christians who seek the mortification of our sin. Oh, I confess, there are lizards on my shoulder, too. Anger. Hypocrisy. Laziness. I pray that God will help me kill them, no matter how much it hurts.

How about you? Any little red lizards on your shoulder?




God has yet again provided financially for another semester at TMC. Each semester has been the same... don't know where the money's going to come from, and then boom; one thing after another falls into place and I'm set. You'd think I'd learn to trust God by now, huh? Well, I'll be the first to confess that I'm an idiot. I looked up tuition prices for UCLA Law School (yes, newsflash to the world, I am re-thinking Law School.... that's another story for another time), and it's almost as much as Master's. I began to immediately get discouraged and slightly depressed. I went home and mentioned it to my mom and she immediately began to theologically slap me upside my head. She reminded me that God has taken care of me this far, and if He wants me at UCLA School of Law, then there's nothing that's going to stop Him. Oh, how easy I forget. God's mercies are new every morning, Great is His faithfulness!




Oh, good news. After over a month of being dormant (some of us were afraid that this was the end), Homestar Runner is back with a new cartoon. Let there be celebration in the streets! Oh joyous day!




Well, there's a lot more I could talk about right now, but I'm getting pretty tired. Good night.