Rob Bell

Rob Bell is a genius. I read his book Velvet Elvis recently. It talks about a lot of things. One of the most interesting involves a brick wall and a trampoline. Yea. Two really separate things. The basic idea is, though, that we as Christians should have faith like a trampoline. A trampoline has springs. Now, these springs help us jump. These springs are like our beliefs. The thing is, if we lose one of these springs, the entire trampoline doesn't fall down. If one of our beliefs fall out of place, say, Mary is undoubtedly found to not be a virgin when she birthed Jesus, we still are able to jump on the trampoline. It doesn't stop us from being Christians. Jesus is still Jesus.

What we shouldn't be, though, is a brick wall. If one brick falls out, the entire brick wall falls down. And, to add to that, we often find ourselves defending a brick wall. I doubt you've ever heard of someone defending a trampoline. In fact, you would often find people with a trampoline inviting people to jump with them.

This is just a short part of an amazing book. If you haven't read it, read it now, even if you are not religious. I promise you will get something out of it.

Fathomless

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. We were having a conversation about normal topics, small talk and the like. It slowly began to transition into being about God, which happens a lot for some reason. I laugh sometimes when we do it, because we both acknowledge that we really don't know anything about Him(Him is subjective. Actually, He isn't a He. He's not even an It. I think.). We can take a few guesses, but that is all they are, guesses.

It's kind of cool, actually. My friend started talking about how we don't understand God, but in a way it's awesome not to. And he was right, I don't want a God that I can fathom. There are some lyrics by a band called As Cities Burn that say, "Is your God really God? Is my God really God? I think our God isn't God, if he fits inside our heads." I don't want a God I can understand, that I can see through and define in my terms because my terms aren't perfect. My terms are infected. With the world, or whatever cliche you choose to say it. It's amazing to me that God has no definition.

Ten-year plan

I think I have a problem. It could be bad, too. Really bad. That is, I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life. I don't know what I want to do. At all. Not even a little bit. I haven't seen anything that interests me that much yet. That said, I do have a major that I will fall back on. It's Information Systems. I hardly even know what that is, but I suppose I will be doing it if nothing else comes into my life.

I really have never known what I wanted to do. I don't know where that stems from, either. I play music, and I know how to use a computer better than the average person, but I really don't want to do those things everyday. So right now,

I have no career interests.

Or a plan.

And I'm okay with that. I understand that there are a lot of things that I don't know. And I probably won't ever get to know them. And for some reason, I doubt I'd ever want to know. It's the mystery that keeps those things alive.

Teachers

I was in a small high school. Our class was always the same people, every time. We weren't always the best class. I'm pretty sure on at least two occasions, we made a teacher quit. One, who we'll call Mrs. Smith, tried everything to stop us. She separated us, and even one time brought a recorder to class to show us how bad we were being. We thought the recording was funny. She quit as soon as was possible. I'm not surprised. We were kind of jerks.

The next one we will call Mrs. Johnson. This one was worse. I don't think she got in five minutes of teaching everyday because of how often she had to tell us to be quiet. One of us counted how many times she did it in one day. The number was 227. I'm pretty sure we drove her crazy. I remember hearing from one of her other classes that she yelled at them, "Shut the mouth up!" On another occasion she yelled "Stop shaking the bed!" I have no idea why. I think we may have taken her insanity to a new level at that point. I remember on one test she gave us a question that the book said could be answered either "salt" or "brine". Most of us put salt, and she said the answer was brine. She marked us wrong, and we began chanting "salt!" and banging on the desks. We ended up getting the points, but not in a good way.

Yea, we were a bad class. But I think we turned out okay.

Halloween

Halloween has always been a really cool time of the year for me. I like how everyone tries to set the mood of something mysterious happening. I enjoy the movies that come on TV, no matter how stupid they are. I remember as a kid that I only ever went trick or treating one or two times. My parents thought that it would be safer if I attended the Halloween event they had at my church. I didn't mind. It was the coolest. They had NES, and that really cool blowup wall with the velcro on it. They also had a jail that allowed us to send a person of our choice into for a small sum of money. It was good fun trapping my friends in there for a few minutes.

I remember everyone wearing costumes. One of my friends took the time to make a Spongebob costume. He got first place in the costume contest. It was actually pretty great, but took far to much effort. I never had great costumes, though. I didn't care enough. Although I'm pretty sure I was dressed as an M & M by my parents at one point.

Halloween has always had an atmosphere to it, you know? That kind of cool, spooky feeling that comes with it. I've always enjoyed that.

Becoming a man

I believe it is cosmic tradition that the day a Catania graduates, he becomes a man. My brother had a particularly unsettling way of becoming a man. My mom's friends cat had to be put down. It was very sad, and the worst part was, he had to bury it in her backyard. He said it is much harder then you would think, burying a cat. Something that just had life, and then was lifeless so soon. But it taught him something, and that day he became a man. I, on the day of graduation, was working for my church because I desperately needed a job. I was under the impression that I was going to be running an internet line from one building to another, but they stuck me outside doing yard work instead. That would have been okay, provided I had any idea what I was doing with the edger they gave me, not to mention the weed whacker. My boss was attempting to show me how to start the edger, but his body was blocking what he was doing. I walked around to see, and right as I did, he started the edger. It hit me, and made me jump back. The blade cut up and down the side of my knee, leaving me bloody and severely woozy. I remember being very close to passing out. I think it was due to my blood sugar. They gave me a peppermint and everything cleared up. I looked down. The gashes were huge. And that was when I became a man. Enduring all of that pain, and the stitches after, and still walking that night.

And honestly, my dad is much more man than both of us. I don't want to know what he had to do on his graduation day to get there.

Bad Influence

I was the smarter one of my group of friends. Not necessarily in terms of books, but in the ratio of who do stupid things in comparison to smart things, I was the winner. I had a friend named Ryan. Ryan is a perfectly mature person right now, and is typically very smart. But that was not the case in seventh grade. Ryan had just come from homeschooling, and he was clay that was unmolded, so naturally we molded him into someone we could get a few cheap laughs from. I remember on his first day we told him to burp into the intercom. And he did it. I thought our English teacher was going to blow a valve. She turned bright, BRIGHT red. She may have had a mini-stroke, I kid you not. And on another occasion, we told him that he should lock the deadbolt on the door while the teacher was out. And he did it. Same teacher, too. I'm pretty sure her heart stopped for the 15 minutes she yelled at us. Which, in retrospect, is pretty cool. He actually didn't get in trouble for that one. He fessed up after class and she was totally okay with it, and I've no idea why, that was a very atypical performance of mercy from her.

So, yea. We were bad people. But I think, accidentally, we taught Ryan how to grow up. And he did. He's one of my better friends now, and I think that through all of it, it did make us better people and better friends.

Bravery

Bravery isn't one thing. Bravery is a mixture. A mixture of confidence, fearlessness, and fortitude. Bravery is the ability to face fear, or danger, or pain without fret. It is being apart of a dangerous situation and having no worries. I believe bravery stems from that which you know is right. Bravery for the sake of bravery is not bravery at all; it is foolishness. To define something as brave it must be done with a motive of faith in something. The motive must be good, and wholesome, and without fault.

There is a fine line between bravery and stupidity, though. One will get you killed. The other has a slightly less chance of that. Stupidity usually comes from the misguided motive, one that is not wholesome, or good, and has much fault. This is what separates the two abstracts. Don't get me wrong, now. You can be stupid and brave. You would just have to try very hard at it. That would require two motives, one foolish, and one true. I believe the word for that is "quixotic", a word that stems from Don Quixote.

Cold weather

Cold weather is one word: stunning. It has a different stigma for me then hot weather does. Hot weather makes me feel dehydrated, and tired, and reminds me of all the nothing that I do during the summer. And I have to wear shorts. I really don't like that. You wanna know why? Because shorts are for chumps. You wanna know why? Because you pay the same price for jeans that you do for shorts, and you get half of what you should be. You're not getting your full pants value!

Anyway, back to cold weather. Cold weather is awesome because you physically cannot be tired when you are in it. It's like a caffeine punch to the face. And it's awesome, and in a way beautiful. It's like the frigid exterior wants you to be as hyped up as it is. Maybe cold has some sort of empyrean balance it must keep to keep the world moving. But who am I to question colds motives? It might have none at all. But I like to think otherwise.

I don't know. There is just something about cold that gives me a rush. The cold feeling on my nose, and the arctic breath in my lungs. Cold constantly finds itself to be almost whimsical day after day for me. Cold is the best part of the year, and I doubt I would trade it for anything.

Ranting

I think this blog is going to become more and more for my ranting. I've had a few stories here and there, but I haven't had a really good rant. There's something about just getting angry at what you are feeling and just in general using your brain to explode about an issue. I don't care if it's politics or just something I find delightfully inane, I just need a way to express pure and unadulterated feelings of absolute painful, passion-filled, raw feelings.

Politics would probably do me good. I've always been quite interested in what is going with our government, whether it be Obama saying derogatory(read: awesome) things about Kanye West, or the health care bill he wants to pass. It's actually kind of fun to be involved in the whole thing, like we're supposed to as Americans. It makes me happy, which will probably be quickly destroyed by the ranting I'm going to do about it. I wouldn't mind talking about world issues, either. Darfur is messed up, man. And if you've heard about Invisible Children, that's an amazing charity for such a sick and twisted situation. If you haven't heard of it, it's a charity trying to help children who are being enlisted into armies to aid in the genocide. Pretty wrong.

Cars.

My car is something that one can only describe as a pariah. It has no place in society. In fact, I believe it should be banished to the pits of hell. It is a 1994 Saturn SL. I inherited it from my father after he got a new car. The first thing I noticed when I got it was that it was broken. Well, not necessarily broken, but it did have a clutch. I think that's close enough. This car has taken a lot of punishment, especially from me trying to learn how to drive the thing. It's terrible on the freeway. People aren't happy being behind me when I'm driving 50 MPH trying to get to 55, a feat that takes all to long. The doors also neglect to do one thing: keep out water. I remember one day sitting down in my car to find the seat completely wet, and subsequently my pants. That's certainly not the best feeling in the world. The car can't help but stick going into third, but it has no fault in the situation. That would be like blaming a senior citizen because he walks slowly. So, yea, my car is a junker. And I don't really like it all that much. But it serves me well. And I'm blessed to have it. Because despite the fact that it gives me trouble, I know that people who don't have cars are doing much worse than I am right now. And hey, who's to say that this car won't build character? It's the least it could do.

Questions about my possible profession

I'd want to know how much money I would make. Knowing if I will be able to support my kids and my family, and know if I will be able to put food on the table. I'd also want to know the work conditions. Is it a short tempered workplace? Or is it rather calm? Is it enjoyable? I want to know about things concerning my overall growth in that field, and if it's a job I will want to have ten years from my start of working there. Are there many benefits? Will I get good health care or that terrible kind that makes you pay more than half? Is it stressful? If so, is it worth the stress to work there anyway? Why is it worth it? Is management considerably smart or considerably stupid? Is it possible to get this job with just a bachelor's degree in my field? Or should I pursue more college classes after four years? Overall, I believe that these are some of the more important questions to ask going into my field.

Building a repetoire

I want to build a repertoire of something. I'm not sure what it will be yet. It could be skills. I wouldn't mind having the ability to hammer a nail without breaking a finger, or being able to skydive. I wouldn't mind that skill that prevents me from being socially awkward, either. Or the ability to prove a point no matter how wrong I am. I suppose that's more of a superpower, really, but a skill is a skill. I'd like to build a repertoire of adventures. It'd be enjoyable to go to Europe, or the Congo. Or the rainforest, but I'm afraid of those devilish piranhas that are swimming around the amazon. I wouldn't mind getting some experience from these trips. I feel too young and immature to truly get anything accomplished, and I want to learn to be better at getting things done. It would be a massive improvement over what I do know, which is close to nothing. I want to get out, and explore, and help people. I think that's why I think being an EMT would be so interesting. You would get to meet so many people(granted, injured people) from different places, and you have the chance to save their lives. I think that's a beautiful thing, and something I truly desire.

Piano

I recently started learning piano. It's only been a month. I'm not very good, but I am improving. I'm enjoying it because employs all parts of my mind. I have to think every time I change chords. I have to think whenever I play a scale. Piano stretches the mind. Piano is also good therapy. I can play piano for hours at a time and have no worries. It gives me something to pour myself into, and allows me to learn and recognize new patterns and understand music more. It feeds a hunger within me to be artistic. Piano ultimately calms the heart and mind, and it is an amazing feeling when it does. The wonderful thing about piano is that even simple chords, played with a simple rhythm can be made into something beautiful. Piano makes no ultimatum; if one note is rejected, another can be played. Piano can take notes that were formerly black and white for me and turn them into something colorful, or give them new feeling. Piano can set a mood, too. Go watch a movie with a sad part accompanied by a song in the background. Now watch it again without. Music makes emotion, and piano does it ten times as well as the other instruments. Sometimes it is as if the piano has a mind of its own, knowing when to play the right notes to make the perfect moment.

Thesaurus

I desperately need to expand my vocabulary. I find myself so often using the same trite expressions over and over again. In my senior year, I started all of the conclusions of my papers with "all in all, blah blah". Sadly, I think my attempts to become less cliche are making me significantly more cliche. Clicheness(I'm aware that this is not a word) is like radiation. It only takes a little bit to make you sick, or in this case affect the way you make sentences. Sadly, I've been heavily radiated. I quite possibly could be The Cliche Hulk. Are cliches a necessary evil(see, there it is again!)? No, I don't think so. I think that when our brains(yes, OUR brains) turn off is when we revert to these devilish expressions, which is why we so often find our papers and conversations filled with these phrases. I, for one, am taking a stand to keep my brain with the "on" flip switched in the right direction as much as possible. Hopefully this will help me improve, and hopefully I don't have this whole thing backwards.