Timelessness and zero-margins

I sometimes wish that life wouldn't move at such a break-neck pace.  I had a counseling session tonight in which my counselor asked me how I rest.  After mentioning such things as tuning out through watching tv and the like, he looks at me and asks what I I do to 'actively' rest, not simply disengage.  And so I sit here, trying to rest, actively... The tv is on, in the background (pbs on ancient roman decapitations), I'm writing online, and trying not to think of all the work I have to do.

how in the world can I not know how to rest?

Thoughts on self-citation








Oh the fun of writing book reports... ;)

Note 1: I've been published. Yeah, it's pretty cool. You can go to http://thirdmill.org/magazine/search.asp/keyword/gra_buck/category/magazine/site/iiim/searchtype/articles to read it.

Note 2: Perception of time it a funny thing. More, hopefully, will come here soon about this, but for now all I can say is that it feels like time is flying by at a million miles an hour and yet I sit here exhausted, feeling as if I cannot move...

interesting note:

is there something to be said about the fact that a common misspelling of worship (at least by myself on the keyboard) is whorship?

'now you think about that'

!Nerd Alert!

the sirens you may (or may not) be hearing in your head are the effect of coming into close contact with a nerd. why me? because i get excited about now having an rss feed for the blog and adding three papers to the file-holding cell.

this is a real emergency and as such you should sell all you have and send the money in a check made out to cash to me.

Blogging edit....

Spell check and grammar check have saved my neck on more than one occasion. The jagged red and green lines crying out to me for a second glance. "Don't just speed on by, writing as stream of conciousness as possible. Look at me! I need attention. Your fat fingers have pounded too many keys at the same time and the beer in your head has replaced proper English." Ah, how those lines have saved me from certain unintelligibility.

Yet, here it sits before me. Etched forever (perhaps) in cyberspace, the fact that I, Graham, am not perfect. Not even am I just not perfect, no, I can't even write an understandable sentence. (see post below) What was to be a poetic thought on possessing/possessions now could be turned in by only the most unobservant thirdgrader.

So why write this? Why spend this much time explaining myself when I could, just as easily, have been using the edit feature to erase away all proof of my error? Only to ask the question: where is my pride? Who's glory am I fighting for? Most of the time it is my own. Do the best I can so that others will recognize my greatness. Yes, I will play the ball-hog to run up my personal stats.

who doesn't?...

[edit] 21:15 10/11/06

Ever wonder whether you own something or it owns you? Try having 50gigs worth of your life locked on a hard drive that just might not work ever again...or perhaps be sitting at work (like I am right now) with rain pouring down so hard it's as if the banks of that crazy river in heaven have broken and the water is trying to flood heaven like New Orleans but only just clear the edge and fall down through space and time and just about tear through the awning by my head, and then you member that the windows at home are wide open...all of them. Consider this and then try and answer the question.

unfortunately the near panic attack of the former and the broken heart from the latter prove my worth.

does any one else see the irony?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091901304.html

an hours contemplation on what it takes to be published from the mouth of Steve Brown. should it scare me that i am enticed......

There are just some things in life that cause you to pause, take a step back, and for just a moment see a more panoramic vista of the life you are living. It's as if you are flying down the interstate, looking at nothing but the white and yellow pulsating with your passing, and then for some inexplicable reason you pull off at the 'scenic overlook' and realize that there is a whole world out there that is not paved and potholed.

It may be that this is some safety mechanism that God has placed in our souls because, at least for myself, it seems to happen the most when life itself is spinning out of control. To continue the driving analogy, it's as if the only place you can go is the overlook because all four tires have blown and you're spinning off the road.

It feels as if my tires have been blowing a lot more frequently than they have in the past. This hit me as I was watching a movie last Sunday. Sitting there, in the midst of a "children's" film, I found myself tearing up as the characters dealt with the issue of slowing down, living where you are at, and seeing the grander picture of the fulness of life. The grind has finally worn its way through the thick hide of my soul and is starting to burn tender insides. I'm read to do something different. I'm ready to move on to the next stage in life. I readily admit that I have no clue what the next thing looks like. Yet I hold out hope that someday, somehow, I might wake up and realize that I've set up house on that 'overlook' drinking in life with every breath.

pause...

what does it mean to be faithful to the Bible? Does it require one to strictly repeat the words of the text or does it mean that we must faithfuly interpret the text for application in modern times?

more thoughts later, but 'you think about that' (yes, i'm sitting in Steve Brown's class).

So my buddy Uri has decided to list me in his 'friends' blogs' section of his blog... great, now I actually have to write something here from time to time. ;) j/k man.

The thing which weighs the heaviest on my mind right now is the responsibility that teachers have. Having just been asked to help TA for ITS this semester has really brought this to bear. I know, I know, I've been teaching sunday school for the past two years, but for some reason the academic setting is more intimidating to me. Perhaps it is because seeing the Bible as the source of life and drawing application from that comes naturally (somewhat) to me now, but having to digest all of the authors, their views, and the purpose of the course as a whole in order to teach this to others is a bit overwhelming. And so it is that the thought comes to mind that I must place all things under Christ and he will provide the neccessary strength to do what he has called me to do. Though I must say that if I feel this way from just a TA'ing gig I can't imagine how I will feel when the time comes for me to be a pastor... yeah... I let that thought lie until it bites me in the butt.

until then...

Yes, it has been a while. However, I can say that I have been, perhaps, the most busy these past few weeks than I have ever been before in my entire life. Well, maybe I ought to modify that by saying that I am ranking it on the stress-level meter. Work and school and marriage, all in proportions that are full time occupations, came together to cause 'the perfect storm.'

No, for real, it was crazy and I am so glad that it is over. Now all I have to do is survive two more of those and I'll be done with seminary. Ahh, some day that will happen. I love it here, but can feel the bug nibbling to move on.

On another note, probably the two finest papers I have ever been a part of are now on the paper site. see the link on the side to fill your brain with lots of stuff, it's your call whether it is good or not....

what a question...

Do you ever find it hard to focus?  I know I do.  There are so many things that are battling for my attention that I feel like I skim along the top of most things and never really get to their depths.  What do I mean by this?  Things like, when I read for class I seem to turn pages more than turn thoughts in my head, or when I spend time in the word I cannot just sit and meditate on it.

Pastor Curt, the other week, said that if you are too busy to spend time with the Lord you are too busy.  I think I am guilty as charged.  But how do I rectify the situation?  That’s the question of the hour.  I cannot cut out work; the bills have to be paid.  I cannot cut out the reading and writing; they are a necessity for graduation.  And I most definitely cannot cut time spent with Becky; if I were to do so I would be under censure of the Scriptures for not running my household in a Godly manner (besides the fact that I would much rather spend time with her than reading, writing, and working).  So what am I do?  I’m not sure.  Pray is what I will do for now.  Maybe the answer will come.

I have just put up a link to a site that houses papers I have written. It's right there above the recent posts. Feel free to peruse...

Sometimes it does not make sense to me, this feeling that I get regarding writing papers. I'm here again, just like yesterday, writing for Judges-Poets. But the difference now is this... I'm going to go over the page limit. At first I worry 'will I have enough to write', and now I worry 'editing back to 10 pages takes too much effort'.

All that might not seem so odd, except for this extrinsic fact, I'm not very verbose. At least when it comes to talking. I say what I want to say and it doesn't take that much time. But when you sit me in front of a keyboard I cannot get my fingers to stop moving. I'm sure I've commented on this somewhere on this blog before, but it never ceases to amaze me.

What would be nice is if people at least enjoy what I have to say. If not...

(I'm sure to post the paper when I am done. let me know what you think)

Have you ever considered...

Have you ever considered what it means to study Scripture?  That every time you come to the Word of God you are bound to respond to it.  Either you will come away with a heart that is softer for the things of the Lord or it is harder.

I sit here now in the throws of writing a paper on the poetic devices used in Judges chapter four and that thought hit me.  Am I sitting here soaking in the life-giving Word, or is the knowledge harden me?

Just a thought you might consider…

There have been thoughts running around in my head that I have not recently been able to think clearly about... and I think that it mostly comes from not laying them down in some sort of format that I can peruse. And so I write on this blog again. For the past two years I have not written much of anything, but I have a yearning to write again.

Why do stories cause me to cry? What is it about pictures of life put to music affect me so deeply? What is it about these things? I cannot listen to a certain new album I bought without feeling the call to something much more beautiful than my own life. It is for this reason that I believe that God gave us stories in the Bible. Think about it. If all we had in the Bible was a systematic theology that we had to memorize to get this Christian life thing down where would the beauty be.

We would not see pictures of Abram and Sarai packing up all they had a walking into the sunset for a land they had never seen.

We would miss the agony of Job as he lay in ashes, jabbing his boil covered body with broken potsherds as he cries out to God for answers.

Where would the heartwrenching picture of a brokenhearted savior praying his heart out to his father in a dark garden, deserted by his friends.

I need stories. I cannot survive without them. What is my story? I think I lose sight of it sometimes. Maybe I ought to write it sometime.

And the last day at work has come.

Yes my friends, that great feeling of never having to go back to your previous place of employment is now brewing within my soul. It's not that I hated my work... well let me rephrase that, I did not care for the work, but I thoroughly enjoyed the people that I worked with. So that made things bearable. But even still I am sitting here now feeling wonderful that never again will I have to work there. If you are wondering where "there" is I will hint with this statement: it had something to do with seeing the inner workings of the human body (without cutting). That's all you get.

And now my life will be consumed with packing for the next two days. The bus pulls out of town on friday so all our junk's gotta be on the van then. ~and my head pounds~

Friday June 18th. Not nearly as superstitious as say a Friday the 13th, but something else is rather eerie on this day. Perhaps maybe it's only because one year ago on this day was the last time I posted to this website. What are the chances of that? It reminds me of another such occurrence in my life. It happened several years ago while I was still in college. I was sitting at the bus stop waiting to go to class and I was rereading one of my favorite books, The Fellowship of the Ring. As I began to read chapter one of the second book this interaction jumped out at me.

"'Where am I, and what is the time?' [Frodo] said to the ceiling.

'In the house of Elrond, and it is ten o'clock in the morning,' said a voice. 'It is the morning of October the twenty-fourth, if you want to know.'"

Why did this startle me so? It is because it was the twenty-fourth of October and it also happened to be 10am as a sat at that bus stop. Now I ask you, what are the chances of that?

So that being what it is, life has completely changed since my last post. I will no longer live the life of the bachelor anymore(which is an amazingly good change). And that job that I was complaining so about is about to be history to me. Now in front of me lies the fascinatingly frightening job of Seminary. The Lord leads me now into His service, a responsibility that is both august and terrifying at the same time. Can I learn all that I need to? Will I remember it all? Will I be able to not only teach the Word, but live it as well? For pastoring is far more than teaching for one hour on a sunday morning. It involves the entire life of the church. That idea is even where we get our word pastor. Pastor comes down to us from the Latin word... pastor. You got it, the same word. In the Latin it meant "herdsman". That's the idea. A pastor leads his congregation in the same manner as a herdsman leads his flock of animals, with loving attention for their well-being.

only in Him can i do this