i dont know if anybody reads this thing anymore.

i volunteered with a homeless shelter last night. it was an interesting experience. my church here in clarksville opens its doors one night a week to the homeless. they do this along with several other churches in the community to give the down and out a place to stay for the cold winter nights. the church always needs a few guys to stay the night there and make sure that everything stays peaceful and what not. that's basically what i did last night.

i had some very interesting conversations last night. i think the most intriguing one had to be with an elderly homeless gentleman. i was discussing spiritual matters, particularly the existence of heaven and hell, with one of the other volunteers, and when we asked him his opinion on it, he stated that he believed that he had seen the ghost of his mother doing circles around the urn her cremated body was in. after that he asked me to explain the problem of evil (why God would let something like 9/11 take place). he then proceeded to tell me that he had once been in a car wreck and had an out of body experience vision of heaven, but God told him to go back, and he asked God if he would need to be saved again, and God said "no, you've already been made an angel", and God granted him the ability to fly, which he has used every now and then on occasion, and also increased his psychic powers so that he is more psychic now than he used to be.

how do you minister to a man in a situation like this?

this may have been my hardest semester yet (though 1st semester junior year probably still has it beat)

History of Christian Ethics     B

Introduction to Psychology    B

Hebrews                               B

Biblical Theology                   B

Philosophy of Religion            A

i only have 2 classes next semester. i need to work on finding a job for the next few weeks. all i did today was lounge around the house. i dont feel too bad about it, i think i needed a day off to kick back, but i need to be careful about not wasting the next month.

merry christmas

so for the last couple of years i've been playing a game called magic:the gathering. about 7 months ago i started getting into it really seriously. i got very good at it, and i got hooked.

i realized last week that it had begun to interfere with my relationship with God and i was becoming obsessed.

actually that's a lie, i realized it much earlier than last week. last week i finally decided that enough was enough though, and i resolved to give up the game completely. i know it seems silly, but for those who dont understand, i guess the closest comparison would be giving up the game of Poker when you had goten to the point of regularly winning local tournaments. that's not a perfect metaphor, but the point is that this was something very hard for me.

i'm glad i quit. playing magic wasnt something i was ever particularly proud of. i can remember coming back from winning a tournament and a friend who knew i played was talking it up in a common place and all i could do was worry about getting "outed". the most important problem though was just that it had become the thing i contemplate. contemplation is so important to any thinker, and everyone does it. i think of contemplation as the place your mind trails off to when youve got a day to kick back and relax but arent watching tv. for me my downtime was being spent on card interactions and deck strategies. this is not acceptable. i'm working on training myself not to even think about the game anymore. its not easy though, i'm kind of obsessive-compulsive.

now i'm faced with a new problem though. while i was playing and focusing hardcore on the game, i didnt have to worry so much about what to do with any excess free time. now i need something new to occupy my brain and my clock. i dont want it to be tv or video games either, those are even worse than magic. i need to find something excellent because i'm trying to become someone awesome.

in all humility i know i'm far from having reached it, but i think that true greatness might be within my potential, but only if i chase after it in a way that i havent in a long long time. i think this is a step in the right direction though.

so the only home i've ever lived in is on the market, and my parents are now in a new place about 2 miles down the road.

its really really weird. on the one hand i dont think its affecting me as much now as it would have 5 years ago when i would have lived here year round. i'm a grown-up now (i think) and i come here to visit family and as a place to stay for long breaks like j-term.

at the same time, home is gone. this house is way nicer than the old house, complete with sun-room, kick-butt swimming pool, one-levelness for my aging parents and we have satellite and broadband internet compared with basic cable and dial-up just months ago. just about everything about this place is nicer than the old house, but i was born and raised in that old house, and its just trippy that its gone now. on the other hand the other house didnt feel like home ever since i started college, but union doesnt feel like home either. is this just supposed to be a time in my life where i'm proverbially home-less? can anyone else relate to this feeling?

this is a bonus question and completely optional:

What do you think about in your spare time (however limited it may be)? When your mind wanders, what does it usually end up wandering to?

i didnt die. plus yesterday i found my bike. that was a good thing.

i've been wasting too much time. i dont know how to get myself to stop. how do you be responsible? if i'm crazy, which i probably am, how do i stop being so? how do you push yourself to do great things? i want to do something big, not necessarily getting acclaim from anybody, but something real and meaningful. what does perseverance look like in the minute to minute?

i'm not really as melancholy as this post makes me sound. things are going very well if i can just survive the next month or so.