i wrote this wednesday, but havent had a chance to publish til now

So, my netterweb was being stupid last night, as it is most nights when I want to blog, and I couldn’t connect. So, this will be posted a day late. (for those who know anberlin, I too am now humming ‘so let me get this straight’ to myself.)

Anyways, the reason for this midnight blog is because some interesting things were talked about at youth tonight.

Matthew 7:7-11 was the parable in question, although I think it came from a different gospel… I just recognized it cuz that’s what I did my devos on this morning (dontcha love it when that happens? Gives one such a feeling of solidarity.)

Well, it boiled down to a conversation on the topic of prayer. One of the things I really like about Eastridge Youth is the dialectic way of teaching things. (dialectic is a form of self-discovery that Socrates is credited as inventing, also known as the Socratic method… its where the teacher teaches the pupil by continually asking them questions and the pupil figures things out with a bit of help from the teacher.) So, in our discussion, the point came about that we shouldn’t be praying for the world around us to change. A lot of times, prayer is along the lines of “Dear God, make this happen.” That always seemed a bit screwy to me. It’s not a matter that God can’t make something happen, it’s that He won’t because that goes against free will; and if free will is gone, Christianity becomes excessively meaningless.

What it came down to is that we should be praying about personal change. But not just that God would change us, because, once again, then we’re castrating ourselves. To put it in an existentialist lens, we’re living in ‘bad faith.’ Of course, this does not mean that we shouldn’t be praying at all, or even that we shouldn’t be praying for these things to change, because I’m sure that every prayer has some sort of effect.

(I just realized how odd my usage of the pronoun ‘we’ is… who exactly am I talking to, and why do I assume I have enough knowledge to teach them?)

the point of the discussion was that we should be praying more for strength for personal change. If you want you’re friend to become a Christian, pray a lack of weak knees and an opportunity.

I’m assuming I’ve contradicted myself a fair bit in here (goodness knows I’ve butchered the English language. (or to keep with my butchery theme, “tha englush lunguge”)) but I’m not too concerned since not only is this not a school assignment, therefore it wont be marked, it’s also not going to be read, so it will just float in cyberspace.

Now then, on to some musicality for the day… going on shuffle on my iPod ‘til a worthy song pops up… and the winner is… “such great heights’ by Postal Service. With the wonderful stanza of:

“I, am thinking it’s a sign, that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images, and when we kiss they’re perfectly aligned/ and I, would have to speculate/that God Himself did make us into corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces from the flame”

even though that line is totally unrelated to what the rest of this blog was about, I thought I’d share it with you, the non-existent reader, because it’s one of those times when a secular artist presents God in a fair way.

Yep, that’s about it.

I should probably start adding links to all the songs I mention so you, the non-existent reader, don’t have to track them down.

Oh, did I mention I went dumpster diving today? I got a bag full of chocolate. Like, a big, industrial sized garbage bag. I’m not sure if it can be considered resourcefulness or stealing from homeless people. Either way, chocolate=endorphins, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.