Well here are a few random things I've been thinking about lately.
*I am finding it very very difficult to wait for this summer. Well I can wait on the hot weather part, but that's beside the point. :) Nothing really going on in June or August, but in July our family is going to be attending my cousin's wedding, (which means getting to go somewhere I've never been before), I might get to visit some of my old friends on the way back, (not sure about that yet though), and *drumroll* the 7th Harry Potter book comes out. I've been waiting on that one for two years now. So let's just say I'm on the impatient side right now for all these things to happen. Another good thing about this summer, I don't have to take swim lessons again. That was a nightmare. But more on that one another time :)
*Basketball wise, Kentucky's coach recently left them so now they have to find another one. I'm personally hoping (along with many other wishful thinkers) that they'll hire the Florida coach, Billy Donovan, who is trying to win his second national championship. He probably won't come (who would want to step into the Kentucky mess anyhow?) but there's always hope in my opinion. :)
*Well I have a voice lesson today and I am horribly afraid the teacher will mention the dreaded word "recital." Okay I'm exaggerating. I do like being in recitals, but they are a very nervewracking experience. I can just imagine forgetting the words, starting in the wrong key, going completely dry in the mouth area, and worst of all blacking out from all the pressure. As you can see, I don't necessarily enjoy being under the spotlight at any given time. :) I'll let you know what happens with that.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Screwtape Letters
Well here is another one of my many school assignments for you. :) The assignment this time was to write a letter posing as Michael the Archangel giving advice to a novice angel down on earth ,assigned to help a human in their Christian life. The assignment was inspired by the novel The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, which is a collection of letters written by a head demon, (Screwtape), to a novice demon down on earth, giving him advice on how to turn a human away from God. Very interesting book and interesting assignment. This is one of my shorter papers so I'm only using one blog to share it with you. Here is the letter I came up with.
Dear Trojus,
As your angel mentor, I was delighted to hear that you have been given a human on earth to watch over and lead to the good side which we are serving. You have been given a particularly difficult case, if my discernment is correct, and hopefully I will be able to give you some sound advice as to what to do from here. This young man is not a Christian, but seeing as to his young years you will have a better chance of converting him than if he was well advanced in years. The longer humans go without knowing the Father, the harder it is for them to be converted and the older they become the more they hate change in any form.
This young man grew up in church and in a Christian atmosphere, but when he left home to attend college he got into bad company and slowly began to turn away from his already weak Christian faith. Obviously the demon assigned to this young man has been working hard to use these friends to drag him away from the Father. This young man is easily swayed by his friends, and his demon obviously took great advantage of this fact. My advice to you is allow him to come into contact with a good Christian young man at the college who he already looks up to and admires in a way. Make sure that the young men at first become friends, and that your human looks up to him as a role model. Then have the Christian man slowly begin to influence your man towards the Christian faith. Make sure this is gradual, however. If the Christian man rushes into this too fast, then your man will simply think he is too "pushy" and will tend to start avoiding him. The demons will take advantage of this and try to make this Christian young man come off as "pushy" in anyway they can. Make sure you guard carefully against this, or things might go dreadfully wrong.
Another thing you might want to correct is this young man’s obsession with the future or things to come. The demon in charge of him is always taking advantage of this, making this young man very difficult to get along with. He never enjoys himself or the present and is always worrying about what will come next. The demon is trying to strengthen this by making this man worry all the more, thus weakening his faith in the Father. It’s your job to strengthen that faith again. Make sure he starts attending a solid church again, and plant the idea in his head that since there is nothing he can do about the future at the moment, why should he worry about it? Help him to realize that since the Father is the only one who knows anything about the future, this man needs to place his faith in him so he won’t have to be frightened of the future any longer. Obviously the demon will try his hardest to counteract this, so you must be on your best guard. Make sure that this young man is not overwhelmed by this demon’s advances, plant the right ideas in his head, and this man will be on the road back to the Father if all goes well. Do write me back and let me know how things are going so I can possibly be of further assistance to you.
Sincerely yours,
Michael
Dear Trojus,
As your angel mentor, I was delighted to hear that you have been given a human on earth to watch over and lead to the good side which we are serving. You have been given a particularly difficult case, if my discernment is correct, and hopefully I will be able to give you some sound advice as to what to do from here. This young man is not a Christian, but seeing as to his young years you will have a better chance of converting him than if he was well advanced in years. The longer humans go without knowing the Father, the harder it is for them to be converted and the older they become the more they hate change in any form.
This young man grew up in church and in a Christian atmosphere, but when he left home to attend college he got into bad company and slowly began to turn away from his already weak Christian faith. Obviously the demon assigned to this young man has been working hard to use these friends to drag him away from the Father. This young man is easily swayed by his friends, and his demon obviously took great advantage of this fact. My advice to you is allow him to come into contact with a good Christian young man at the college who he already looks up to and admires in a way. Make sure that the young men at first become friends, and that your human looks up to him as a role model. Then have the Christian man slowly begin to influence your man towards the Christian faith. Make sure this is gradual, however. If the Christian man rushes into this too fast, then your man will simply think he is too "pushy" and will tend to start avoiding him. The demons will take advantage of this and try to make this Christian young man come off as "pushy" in anyway they can. Make sure you guard carefully against this, or things might go dreadfully wrong.
Another thing you might want to correct is this young man’s obsession with the future or things to come. The demon in charge of him is always taking advantage of this, making this young man very difficult to get along with. He never enjoys himself or the present and is always worrying about what will come next. The demon is trying to strengthen this by making this man worry all the more, thus weakening his faith in the Father. It’s your job to strengthen that faith again. Make sure he starts attending a solid church again, and plant the idea in his head that since there is nothing he can do about the future at the moment, why should he worry about it? Help him to realize that since the Father is the only one who knows anything about the future, this man needs to place his faith in him so he won’t have to be frightened of the future any longer. Obviously the demon will try his hardest to counteract this, so you must be on your best guard. Make sure that this young man is not overwhelmed by this demon’s advances, plant the right ideas in his head, and this man will be on the road back to the Father if all goes well. Do write me back and let me know how things are going so I can possibly be of further assistance to you.
Sincerely yours,
Michael
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Bell Festival
This past weekend (Friday-Saturday) I was on our youth group choir's annual handbell festival. It was very similiar to the choir festival I went on last month except it was handbell playing instead of singing. There were about 24 choirs there. Bell tables, bells, people, chairs, everything all packed into one church's Family Life Center. Oh and before you ask, yes it was a just tiny bit on the claustraphobic side at times :) On Friday evening we had to play bells from 7:00 (not AM) to 10:00 After that session I began to wish I had never seen a handbell in my life. Don't get me wrong, I love playing, but three hours is enough for a handbell fanatic to wish they could get out of there. (And fast.) That evening back at the hotel, I had the pleasure of watching Kentucky win a tournament game (which would cheer anyone up fast in my opnion) :) I was thoroughly exhausted by the time 11:30 rolled around, but of course the two friends I was rooming with had had enough sugar to keep them going for awhile longer. They didn't calm down till about 12:15-12:30, and I just couldn't nod off now matter how hard I tried. Then when I was in the middle of a particularly enjoying dream, rock music blared into my thoughts. Turns out, my friend had set her ipod to go off at 5:30 so she could take a shower. Since we didn't have to be ready to leave for the next bell session till 9:45, I wondered what shower she was taking that would last for hours.
After all that and another morning of ringing, ringing, and I repeat, ringing, it was finally time for the concert which went very well. Finally, the minute the festival ended chaos erupted. Picture this: Notebooks and pencils flying the air, chairs being thrown, tables being taken down and accidentally landing on unfortunate people's heads; okay I'm exaggerated but it is pretty chaotic when 24 bell choirs attempt to pack up all their bells and leave all at the same time. We made it though without no one having to make a trip to the hospital, and now I am so tired I think I'll crawl into bed and sleep for a week.
After all that and another morning of ringing, ringing, and I repeat, ringing, it was finally time for the concert which went very well. Finally, the minute the festival ended chaos erupted. Picture this: Notebooks and pencils flying the air, chairs being thrown, tables being taken down and accidentally landing on unfortunate people's heads; okay I'm exaggerated but it is pretty chaotic when 24 bell choirs attempt to pack up all their bells and leave all at the same time. We made it though without no one having to make a trip to the hospital, and now I am so tired I think I'll crawl into bed and sleep for a week.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Why?
Many times in life we find ourselves asking "Why, God? Why did this happen? Why didn't you step in?" I find myself guilty of that many times. This past week a 60 year old woman in our church died from strep pneumonia. The infection was just too much for her to handle. It was odd because the doctors were saying she was going to be fine, and so many people were praying for her. Then all of a sudden she just took a turn for the worse. She was a devout Christian and she is with the Lord now, but I still wonder why the Lord didn't heal her.
Earlier this week a five-year-old boy was killed on a motorcycle track in our community. Apparently an older boy was doing tricks in the air and accidentally fell straight on the little boy. I didn't know him but it's still a shock that God would allow something like that to happen. Why a child? Why didn't God step in and do something?
Incidents like this can really get us questioning God and wondering if God really cares about what is going on here on earth. This past Sunday,however, my dad (who happens to be a minister) gave a great illustration concerning these things. (Hope you don't mind me posting it here, Dad :) You remember when you were a young child and adults would never answer your questions because they realized you wouldn't understand even if they told you? That's a bit like it is with us and God. We're just children to God and He realizes that if He took the time to explain to us why bad things happen, we still wouldn't understand.
Also last Sunday my dad brought up a Scripture from Luke in which people were questioning Jesus about why bad things happened to their friends. They wanted to know if God was punishing their friends for doing something wrong. The answer was of course not. But Jesus never explains why bad things happen. Instead He says repent before your time is up. That's a good way to look at things. Instead of wondering why things happen and why God doesn't step in we should value the time we have here on earth and get right with God. We're still going to wonder why things happen, but just remember we are living in an evil world. Listen to this scripture from John 16:33., In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." Jesus Himself says we're going to have troubles in this world. But this world isn't going to last forever.
Earlier this week a five-year-old boy was killed on a motorcycle track in our community. Apparently an older boy was doing tricks in the air and accidentally fell straight on the little boy. I didn't know him but it's still a shock that God would allow something like that to happen. Why a child? Why didn't God step in and do something?
Incidents like this can really get us questioning God and wondering if God really cares about what is going on here on earth. This past Sunday,however, my dad (who happens to be a minister) gave a great illustration concerning these things. (Hope you don't mind me posting it here, Dad :) You remember when you were a young child and adults would never answer your questions because they realized you wouldn't understand even if they told you? That's a bit like it is with us and God. We're just children to God and He realizes that if He took the time to explain to us why bad things happen, we still wouldn't understand.
Also last Sunday my dad brought up a Scripture from Luke in which people were questioning Jesus about why bad things happened to their friends. They wanted to know if God was punishing their friends for doing something wrong. The answer was of course not. But Jesus never explains why bad things happen. Instead He says repent before your time is up. That's a good way to look at things. Instead of wondering why things happen and why God doesn't step in we should value the time we have here on earth and get right with God. We're still going to wonder why things happen, but just remember we are living in an evil world. Listen to this scripture from John 16:33., In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." Jesus Himself says we're going to have troubles in this world. But this world isn't going to last forever.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Hole in the Ozone Layer
Besides Global Warming and all that jazz, many people are starting to panic about the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. Why? Well if you didn't already know this the ozone layer that covers the earth protects us from deadly ultriviolet rays that head towards the earth from the sun. The ozone layer shields us from these rays which explains why we're not all dead right now. :) However, many environmentalists are beginning to freak out because there is a small hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. Many people are afraid this hole has been caused by the production of CFC's. What are CFC's you might ask? They are very useful chemicals that are responsible for air conditioning, refrigeration, proper fire fighting equipment, proper sterlization procedures for surgery, etc. They travel up to the hole through the Polar Vortex (a wind phemonona that occurs for about three months out of the year) and make the hole a little bit bigger than it was. So the government has banned the production of CFC's. They are still being used today because we still have a lot of them left from former production of them. However, eventually we are going to run out and that will not be a good thing.
Now where was I? Ahh yes the hole in the ozone layer. Well first of all this hole isn't even a threat to any of us at all. Listen to these quotes from Dr. Jay Wile's Exploring Creatin with Physical Science p. 73.
"First of all, it is important to realize that back when Dobson first discovered the ‘ozone hole,’ CFC’s were not being widely used. Thus the ‘ozone hole’ itself cannot be traced completely back to CFC’s. It seems to be, in part, a natural phenomenon. It is also important to note, however, that over the years, the ‘hole’ has gotten deeper and deeper. In other words, the concentration of ozone in the ozone layer over Antarctica during the months of August to November is significantly lower today than it was when Dobson first discovered the ‘ozone hole.’ ....At the same time, however, the concentration of ozone in the ozone layer over Antarctica during the rest of the year (November to August) has not changed. In other words, even though the ‘ozone hole’ is deeper than it used to be, it is only deeper for about 3 and a half months out of the year. Once November passes, the ozone concentration returns to essentially the same level it has been since ozone levels have been measured."
So what is all of this saying? It's saying that this hole is no threat to anyone whatsoever. The hole only really exists for about four months out of the year! The Polar Vortex which is responsible for carrying CFC's up to the hole only occurs for about three months out of the year. So basically the government has banned CFC production to protect the few people living in Antarctica from a hole that only exists for about four months. There is not even proof that people in Antarctica are being harmed from the ozone layer whatsoever.
Why is the government doing all of this? Because they are ignorant to it. They don't diligently study science so they won't know that what they are doing is wrong scientifically. It's up to us to learn the truth about issues like this and do something about it. I am seriously thinking about writing a letter to the president telling him about all of this. So what if he might not even read it. Nobody said trying was against the law.
Now where was I? Ahh yes the hole in the ozone layer. Well first of all this hole isn't even a threat to any of us at all. Listen to these quotes from Dr. Jay Wile's Exploring Creatin with Physical Science p. 73.
"First of all, it is important to realize that back when Dobson first discovered the ‘ozone hole,’ CFC’s were not being widely used. Thus the ‘ozone hole’ itself cannot be traced completely back to CFC’s. It seems to be, in part, a natural phenomenon. It is also important to note, however, that over the years, the ‘hole’ has gotten deeper and deeper. In other words, the concentration of ozone in the ozone layer over Antarctica during the months of August to November is significantly lower today than it was when Dobson first discovered the ‘ozone hole.’ ....At the same time, however, the concentration of ozone in the ozone layer over Antarctica during the rest of the year (November to August) has not changed. In other words, even though the ‘ozone hole’ is deeper than it used to be, it is only deeper for about 3 and a half months out of the year. Once November passes, the ozone concentration returns to essentially the same level it has been since ozone levels have been measured."
So what is all of this saying? It's saying that this hole is no threat to anyone whatsoever. The hole only really exists for about four months out of the year! The Polar Vortex which is responsible for carrying CFC's up to the hole only occurs for about three months out of the year. So basically the government has banned CFC production to protect the few people living in Antarctica from a hole that only exists for about four months. There is not even proof that people in Antarctica are being harmed from the ozone layer whatsoever.
Why is the government doing all of this? Because they are ignorant to it. They don't diligently study science so they won't know that what they are doing is wrong scientifically. It's up to us to learn the truth about issues like this and do something about it. I am seriously thinking about writing a letter to the president telling him about all of this. So what if he might not even read it. Nobody said trying was against the law.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Bridge to Terabithia Review
Here is a review for the Disney movie "Bridge to Terabithia" which I got to see today.
The story revolves around Jess Aaorns (a lonely country boy) and Leslie Burke (the new rich girl at Jess' school.) Since both of them have ultimately no friends in the school, they befriend each other and help each other face the bullies at their school. Later on they venture into the woods and discover the land of Terabithia, a land created by their imaginations. They must face creature versions of problems in their real lives in Terabithia and learn how to deal with these problems in the real world.
This movie was completely opposite from what I expected. From the trailer I expected the movie to be a true fantasy adventure story like The Chronicles of Narnia. The trailer is exceedingly misleading, however. There is some fantasy involved of course, but not very much. The story mainly revolves around the powerful friendship of Jess and Leslie. The acting was excellent and the graphics good, but the movie was a little boring at times towards the beginning and middle of the film. Also the last few minutes were extremely bittersweet and the middle just plain sad. So the bottom line is if you are looking for a fantasy adventure film like Narnia don't go see this movie. The film was overall pretty good in my opnion. It just wasn't what I expected. Overall I give this movie 2 1/2-3 stars out of 5.
The story revolves around Jess Aaorns (a lonely country boy) and Leslie Burke (the new rich girl at Jess' school.) Since both of them have ultimately no friends in the school, they befriend each other and help each other face the bullies at their school. Later on they venture into the woods and discover the land of Terabithia, a land created by their imaginations. They must face creature versions of problems in their real lives in Terabithia and learn how to deal with these problems in the real world.
This movie was completely opposite from what I expected. From the trailer I expected the movie to be a true fantasy adventure story like The Chronicles of Narnia. The trailer is exceedingly misleading, however. There is some fantasy involved of course, but not very much. The story mainly revolves around the powerful friendship of Jess and Leslie. The acting was excellent and the graphics good, but the movie was a little boring at times towards the beginning and middle of the film. Also the last few minutes were extremely bittersweet and the middle just plain sad. So the bottom line is if you are looking for a fantasy adventure film like Narnia don't go see this movie. The film was overall pretty good in my opnion. It just wasn't what I expected. Overall I give this movie 2 1/2-3 stars out of 5.
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