Another Step

It is hard to believe that I have been down here for two years already. I have three weeks to go until this quarter is over. Last night we had our Vicarage assignment service. In a meeting a couple months ago, I asked to go to St. Paul, Mn. Then Dr. Neilson asked me If i wouldn't mind going closer to home. I figured I was going to Detroit or Chicago. Right before the Call Service, Neilson told me my supervisor was going to be here. So, I naturally thought I would be going to Chicago, because every other place would be too far to drive from. The whole service I am thinking how cool it is going to be to live in Chicago. Then as they get to the end of the alphabet, I stand up, move to the front, and await my assignment. Then I hear my name: "Georgia-Florida district..." I was so stunned I just moved up, shook hands, and smiled at people. President Meyer asked where I was going and I couldn't tell him. I am going to Largo, Florida, right outside of Tampa. It should be real cool.

Shades

This was fun. I have been messing around with a free image software called gimp. Its pretty cool. It can do most of the stuff that Adobe Photoshop can as well as many of the tools of illustrator. It is still taking me a while to learn all of the tools, but I am happy with what I can do right now. Either way, it is fun to mess around with this stuff again.

Jakos Grandrock

Jakos Grandrock is one Bane's most trusted Generals. He is the Dragon Rider and was responsible for the destruction of the Nexus League's mountain base north of Meldui. He killed the great Elvin archer, El Cinder, and has since been Yhhric's arch nemesis.

The Soulless

I must also say, Good job, Shedu! Check this out, Pete.

Finrax, king of Zerintoc

Rifftrax

Ever wonder what happened to the guys from MST3k? Well, Mike Neilson and Kevin Murphy(the mad doctor) now run this website. They sell MP3 "riffs" that you can run simultaniously with your favorate movie. Sure, you don't have the nice silouettes of Mike and the robots, but still. I think I will need to watch the LOTR or starwars

Addressing a post from some time ago

You know, I have been really wanting to respond to this post for a very long time. However, since you address so many things, I never knew where to start. Since I have a test tomorrow and I do not yet know the material at 1 in the morning, I figured now would be a good time to respond.

I guess I would say that I do indeed feel God in my life, at least much of the time. Though sometimes he feels very far off, almost absent, other times I feel Him next to me and in this I am more certain than anything else in my life.

I know you mentioned the "euphoria" as being the catalyst of your religious experience. If I understand you right, you believe that you were somehow tricked into feeling this way, in believing something that wasn't there. While much religious music and architecture it meant to affect the person, it is never meant to deceive them. Generally it is supposed to inform the worshiper/visitor that they are in a special place, a place set aside(holy)for God. In essence, it is supposed to quite all the distractions in your mind so that you can reflect on the holiness of God.

I do not know about the alter call stuff and all that entails, since I am Lutheran and we do not do that sort of thing.

I would like to address your post-experience reaction. You discount your experience because in the aftermath, the joy or emotion or whatnot faded as time goes on leaving you feeling mislead. I want to ask you a question: what indeed did you do to foster the faith that was apparently started at those times?

Many people will have a fervor for faith in God but then they do nothing with the gift that they were given. If you do not believe in double predestination and if you believe that you have free will, that means that you have to do something to seek God. He is not always going to be in your face. He is not always going to make things great for you, because he wants you to seek Him. He is not going to radically change the way you think because he values your free will. If you want to know Him and if you want Him to change you, you need to hear what He has to say. You need to stay in his word, seek his guidance, and pray for his spirit.

Some people say they don't need someone else telling them how to view and understand God. What arrogance! Didn't you need someone to tell you how to understand science, math, the English language? No one would say,"I don't need someone else to tell me what happened in the past. I can know it on my own without archaeological, eyewitness, and historical information." That would be ridiculous. The same goes with God. You can have a vague idea of what God is by observing nature, but this is but a shadow. You can't truly know God unless he reveals himself to you. He does this through his Son, Christ Jesus. And we read what his Son had to say and, most importantly, what he did, in scriptures.

You say you wonder why you why God hasn't touched your life. Well, I gather from what your wrote here and our conversations in the past that He has. Yet the question remains, what did you do in response?

I will respond to one more thing. Many of you have blamed Christians for acting in various ways and not always acting as they should. I must stress, Christians are sinful people like everyone else. Some do not have good instruction and believe they are better than others, but this simply is not the case. Christians are not perfect, and they never will be in this life time. That is the whole point. That is the whole reason Christ came. Anyone that claims he is perfect, or even a good person by God's standards, is fooling himself. Christ died for us because we are slaves to our sin and are, by our sinful natures, enemies of God. Yet while we were still in our sins, Christ died for us. In your baptism, you are brought into this new covenant with Christ. This is our central message. This is what we proclaim. Don't let "Christians" get in the way of your relationship with Christ.

Long post. I'll stop now. As always, no offence taken from yours or any other's views. I welcome and comments of reflections.

Krowen, son of Derkus

Here is what Shadow looked like when he was young

Today

The night before Shadow died I was trying out a new photo program. As I was speaking to my mom about what they were going to do with Shadow, I pulled up his picture. Here we were talking about this old dog, diseased and in so much pain. We spoke of how we had no choice other than to let him suffer or to put him down. Throughout all this convincing ourselves of his sorry state and his need for his suffering to end, I was looking at Shadow's portrait. I began to imagine him young again. Soon I found myself erasing the signs of age. I darkened his fur, returned the shine to his coat, and erased the pain from his eyes. It all felt so surreal. He was old and at the very end of his life, yet here I was trying to make him new again.

Tonight in church, this experience came back to me. I realized that what I was trying to do with Shadow, was what Christ actually did for us on Good Friday, what he began that day on the cross. I heard His words, "Behold, I make all things new."(Rev 21.5) On that cross, He began to wipe away all of our signs of age. He started to smooth out our wrinkles. He began to take away our pain. Yet He didn't just do this on the surface. In fact, he didn't even start there. He began at the source, our souls.

He began to make you new that day. He died on the cross for you, so that age, disease, and death might not claim you and hold you forever. He died so that He might give you life. So today, don't trust in yourself. Don't fool yourself into thinking you hold back the inevitable. No matter how how hard you try, you will grow old and you will die. There is nothing you can do to hold these things back. Trust in Christ. Only He can make you new.

Good Bye, My Old Friend

Shadow

1994-2007