Here lie the collected musings of Nathan Dorey - Christ-follower, husband, father, coffee addict, web developer, musician, writer and that guy that talks too much. Come one, come all! Mind your step, excuse the mess and please do not feed the ego.
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Tuesday, July 31, 2007
"Wake up O sleeper. Arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you"
- Ephesians 5:14
"Here we are now with the falling sky and the rain - we're awakening!
Here we are now with our desperate youth and pain - we're awakening!
Maybe it's called ambition, but you've been talking in your sleep;
About a dream - we're awakening, yeah!"
- Switchfoot, "Awakening"
And on that note, check out this *awesome* giant sculpture in Washington DC...
The Awakening
Monday, July 30, 2007
OK, this post isn't going to be long.
There's a thought which I've found myself dwelling on a bit lately, and I'm going to put it down on paper (metaphorically, of course - no one uses that stuff anymore right?) in the hope that it will help the idea to grow and take shape... It's all web 2.0, man! - interaction and shared power of creation! (man, I am such a geek...)
Aaaanyway...
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The Will. Such a nebulous concept. What does the term even mean?
Freedom? - "Do as you will", so they say.
Willfulness? - the joy of every 2 year old, and the bane of their parents. It is such a surreal experience to see your child - who didn't even exist 4 years ago - trying to enforce his will on the world like a mighty despot. "General Daniel, El Presidente for Life." Less surreal and more unsettling, actually...
Or what about "free will", hmm? We all want to believe that we have the final say, don't we?
"Change your circumstances with positive thoughts", says Oprah.
"It's a free country", says random punk teenager, "I can do whatever I want" (and when it comes to it, freedom to do what you want *is* why the USA was even founded)
Or as we Christians like to say "Choose God! Accept him as your Personal Lord and Saviour (tm)".
When I hear all this talk, I can't help but think that in spite of 400 years of science, we all secretly harbour the belief that the universe revolves around us. You'd think that at least the Christians would have ducked that one...
What I'm finding, more and more, is that my will is bad. Does that sound too strong? What if I could honestly say that out of all the times in my day that I'm faced with temptation to do something wrong - whether it's to tell a white lie to get out of trouble, or get angry when my train is late, or lazily waste my time on the computer, or over-eat, or look a little bit too long at a raunchy ad on TV - what if I could honestly say that most of the time, I gave in. That given the choice, I would choose to do wrong?
Personally, I've never been dragged to a table and forced to eat too much. I've never had my eyes taped open. You could say that I "freely" chose it, eyes wide open, every time. It was an action of my will, willing myself to go and do something that displeases God, hurts myself and most likely hurts others too.
That is what my will is like, anyway.
And that is why I believe, alongside some old dead guys like Jonathan Edwards, in what they call "The Bondage of the Will". In real theologian-speak it's called "Total-" or "Radical Depravity". It doesn't mean that we "can't choose anything at all", or that we're robots. It actually makes a big deal out of our culpability - it says that when it comes to it, all things being even, we human beings willingly choose to sin, every day, in basically every way we can manage.
We are all radically messed up - for all our claims to freedom, and being able to choose what we do in life, we can't help but do what is wrong. Not because we want to do what's right, but we have trouble making it happen - but because even deeper, even more sinister, we want to do what's wrong.
That is why Jesus says "anyone who sins is a slave to sin". You see, this stuff is not a sign of freedom, or of wisdom in rejecting conventional morality - it means you're not free. It means that your lust, or your anger, or your greed, or your selfishness - it's controlling you! You can't help it!
So... Woo hoo! Isn't this a happy state of affairs. We all say we're free, but we're not. We all say we can do whatever we want, man, but we can't. Real freedom isn't in freedom to sin - it never could be. Real freedom, as God defines it, is in being free to do what is right. Being free from the emotions and desires that plague us from the inside out. Being free to love God with undivided devotion. Being free to be the man, or woman, or lover, or parent, or friend - that you were made to be. And that only comes through the God that made you. Through the Rescuer who breaks your chains of sin and unholy desire. Through the Lover who can burn away all the lesser loves in your life in the ferocity of his own.
If "freedom", as the world defines it, is what I've experienced time after time in this world, then I don't want to be free. I don't want to be my own. I want to be God's.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
"The course of wisdom consists of learning to trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones"
- Marcus Aurelius (famous Roman guy who it seems was pretty smart)
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
OK, my lunch break is over and I'm not finished the left nav yet. At least you know what it's *meant* to look like now, though... I'll attempt to get it done tomorrow, ok? OK? Geez, get off my back, man! You people...
"Master, Lover of humankind, make the pure light of your divine knowledge shine in our hearts and open the eyes of our mind to understand the message of your Gospel. Implant in us the fear of your blessed commandments, so that, having trampled down all carnal desires, we may change to a spiritual way of life, thinking and doing all things that are pleasing to you.
For you are the glad tidings, enlightenment, Saviour and guardian of our souls and bodies, O God, and to you we give glory, together with your only-begotten Son, and your all-holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages."
Really awesome stuff. It really gets to one of the most important aspects of Scripture in our lives - not just to inform, or encourage, or God forbid to simply entertain us - but to transform us. That we may live spiritual lives, thinking and doing all things that are pleasing to him.
That's my prayer.
Yes, I realise that the website currently looks a little... weird. I'm tweaking it as we speak, and while it's in mid-transition - I'm lettin' it all hang out!
I'd get fired if I did this with a client's site, but I must admit, it feels quite... freeing... to be able to leave it up there, warts, mismatched colours and all.
My site is a naturalist. Take it or leave it, baby :)
PS: Yes Annie, this post in absolutely in response to you. Get back to work.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Hey gang (if I can be called a "gang"),
I've decided to port over the couple of posts that I made on my 'Space (saying "my MySpace" just seems wretched - I can't bring myself to say an oxymoronic "my", even if it is part of a proper noun!). This serves the twofold purpose of putting everything in one place... AND giving me the ability to tell anyone who remarks on the lack of comment activity "yeah, but it's totally got tonnes of hits on my other blog" (which it doesn't.) Perfect.
So in honour of my previous posts, I won't use the same post naming conventions which I may have unofficially adopted for this blog (read: vagueness, ellipsi and use of rather odd English.)
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Yes, I have changed the layout...
I didn't really like the original that much, but it was *there*, and that meant that I didn't need to make one for myself. Now, however, in an unprecedented demonstration of moxy and aplomb (I like oft-neglected adjectives), I have made my own template!
However, after spending more time than I would like to admit playing with the colours, I've decided that I don't really like it that much after all. I wanted to keep the background in the background all the time, but I didn't really want the heading to stay there (but alas, it is part of said background...) I'm not really very happy with the end result - because in setting the background to *not* static, you lose the picture and get a whole lotta black when you scroll.
Keep in mind, it's not just a plain black fill (such a thought!), but a scrolling background that lines up with the background image above it. It's a *whole* lot classier, but that doesn't really help because it's so dark that only people with ridiculously bright monitors (like me!) will even be able to make out... Ho hum.
Who said that teenagers had the monopoly on angst. I'm all angsty over this, y'all.
