What I did This Week: "We have a Lift-off!"

  Fall has officially started here in Houston. Well, it has been in the eighties for the past week, and compared to summer, it feels like a blizzard has come through.

 

  This week I tried to work on different projects with my little brothers. On Monday I started a piñata with my brother Paul. The first day went okay, but there are no pictures of the finished project because when we tried to put on the second layer of paper-mache it collapsed. 

 

  Then I made clay models with my little brothers. I made this abstract cat while the rest my brothers made some unidentified resting objects. 

 

 

  Then on Thursday we got to go to Mission Control at the Johnston Space Center and watch the launch of the Soyuz capsule for Expedition 41. One the elders at our church, Barry Wilmore, is an astronaut and so we were invited to watch the capsule's launch from mission control. It was surreal to say the least. 

 

  And now I leave you with this music video for one of the songs of my childhood. Here's to DC Talk's reunion!

 

                                

 

 

Some Nights We Shoot Guns

  My father again proved that he is the master of the spontaneous when at the dinner table he announced that he wanted to shoot guns this evening. I did not get to run, I got to shoot instead.



(These pictures of me are courtesy of my Dad.)

The Fear of Freedom

  Once again Saint Augustine has provided me with food for thought as I continue on my journey through Confessions. Last night I came across this quote:
   "From their grandeur of mind I was far removed. Caught fast in a disease of the flesh with its deadly sweetness, I dragged along my chains and was fearful of being loosed from them. As if my wound had been struck, I repelled his good and persuasive words, as I would a hand unlocking my chains."
  I was then reminded of what Paul says in Romans 7:14-15 (NIV), "We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."
  Sin is a wretched thing. There is that one moment of pleasure as we gratify our flesh, but it flees quickly. We are left groveling about with yet another link added to the chains we are loath to remove. Why is it that we drag them around? A painful burden that holds us in slavery. We push back the pierced hand of Christ when He reaches down to free us and continue to follow sin's wicked, siren song; ever unsatisfied.
  It is not till the Holy Spirit softens our hearts to the hand of Christ do we accept Him and heed the call to freedom. It is only Christ we leave our chains behind and embrace freedom without fear or regret.

  The trail is hard, it cannot be denied. Scaling the sides of the mountain truly in a daunting task. But trudging the wilderness to reach the top is impossible. No short cut there is worth trying. Any attempt to quicken or ease the journey only results in a soul piercing punishment, unmatched by any physical pain one can inflict, and only pulls us lower. The way of holiness is hard, but the way of the wicked is harder still.
  To drag one's body through that hell-bent tangle further from the way makes it more agonizing to turn back and regain lost ground. The way we make for ourselves brings us not to the gates of Heaven but drags us through the circles of hell.
  The way to holiness is hard even with the help of our Savior, but the hard things are usually the treasures worth searching for.

raining.

   Rain is nice that one, dreary afternoon. It is an excuse to curl up with a cup of tea and read F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories until it is time to get ready for dinner. And it is a nice thing to go to sleep listening to raindrops gently thud against the windows. But waking up to the rain is not pleasant. Nor is driving in the rain. After three days of rain, a body is bound to be driven to insanity or the dark pits of depression. It would be so nice to go outside without the danger of drowning in puddles.

  But then there is the miracle of rain. Water is falling out of the sky. Has it happened so many times I have ceased to be thrilled by the wonder of it? Have I come to a state where I think I am too old and sophisticated to go and lose myself outside in the mud and water? And rain is not just water. It is a thousand crystals falling from the sky, shattering on the ground, forming sheets of liquid glass. It is a healing ointment, a cleansing baptism for the face of the earth. And when the rain is over and the star that earth orbits peeks through the clouds, God's bow rests somewhere in the sky, a promise that He will never destroy the earth with water again. 

"Take My Intellect..."

  Nearly my entire life I have known the song "Take my Life and Let it Be." Whenever I sing in church, I do my best to make sure that I actually mean the words coming out of my mouth. Songs like "Take my Life and Let it Be" can be hard to sing with sincerity, and it has taken years of the Holy Spirit working in my life to come to a place where I can sing this song from the bottom of my heart. But as of late, I involuntarily shudder at the second line of the fourth verse: "Take my intellect, and use every power as thou shalt choose."
  Certainly, there is an aspect of this verse that is exciting. It could mean that God will take my intellect and use it as He did St. Augustine's or C.S. Lewis'. But there is also a terrifying aspect to those words. What if it means I will lose my memory? What if it means that the knowledge I have attained over the years will fade away? What if it means my intellect will crumble? Over the years I have seen some very sweet and dear Christians lose their minds to disease; so that possibility does not seem wholly unlikely.
  Christianity is not about living in fear though. I do not know what the future holds for me, but God does. Each event enacted in my life is in the palm of my Heavenly Father's hand. And He has given me the faith to trust Him with everything, even my intellect.

What I Did This Week: How Not to Cook

 

  This week was interesting. I had a couple run-ins with the oven, but I had some success to, so I would say my cooking has been okay all in all.

 



  Last Thursday I had baked some cookies to take with us when my family and I went out of town. I had left a pan of them in the oven over the weekend. Then on Monday when I fired up the oven to make pigs-in-a-blanket I was doing this:



 

  So I opened the oven and found this:

 

  Then on Tuesday I took this pretty cool but completely purposeless self-portrait.

 

  All throughout the week I ran with mosquitoes.

 

  Thursday I tried to make some cupcakes for my brother's birthday and this happened.

 

  But last night I had success when I made this meatball flatbread thing.

 

  And so went my week.