For your information...

My wife was sonogramed today, and it appears to be official. Bethany is with children.
She's 10 weeks deep, and sick as ever.



Due date: 4/20

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my new blog layout is straight up oozing with awesome. It’s the latest and greatest in pre-manufactured template designs, dope beats on the playlist, and ...balloon pictures. This is like Myspace on crack. I know, you are probably overwhelmed by the experience, but you’ll get used to it. Take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and read on.

What’s that you say, I’m not special? Anyone can do this to their blog?

I beg to contend the difference as to why only I could align all the necessary planets of awesome to achieve this:

Only I could choose this template (conveniently labeled Awesome Template™­) from dozens of other options (dozens mind you), only I could find an adequate (dare I say …awesome?) picture of a balloon, only I could find these particular dope beats (and there is quite literally a metric butt-load of other beats from which to choose) and only I could amass them all to this phenomenal achievement that is: otiöse morosity 2.0.

This, my friends, is an Awesome O.D.

TECHNO YOU DIDN'T!

Hello long lost blog reader! So nice for you to see me again. I am pretty good, how are you?
Well, now that we’re all caught up on the formalities, we can digress to yet another uneventful and insignificant b-log. It should be said from the beginning that neither this melting bird image, nor the title of this blog have anything to do with the content henceforth. Tis but an image worth a passing gander and a title worth a passing giggle. (And a rare excuse to employ such words as gander and giggle which have an intentionally minimal occurrence in my vocabulary.)

SO, News concerning myself: I have re-entered the wonderful experience that is nursing school, so my time is saturated with care plans, nursing interventions, advanced excrement containment technique, and things of the like. I have managed to finish some books I started before the fall semester began, however, and if I may, I will share a bit about a couple of said books with you.
One was a quasi-apologetic book written by N.D. Wilson called ‘Notes from the Tilt-a-whirl’ that was recommended by a brother (who wrote a much better review here and) who thought it would be up my ally. The title is a pun about him making various observations (some obvious, some profound), while the globe spins on its axis, circling the sun. He writes in a style all his own. I haven’t come across anything else like it anyway. At first I was a little thrown trying to figure out where he was going with some obscure statements and random anecdotes, and I quickly saw why he makes a disclaimer within the first few statements in the preface that drugs did not contribute to his writing of the book. It ended up being really entertaining once I got used to his writing, which is more poetic than anything. He has a fondness of minds like G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis and his philosophical ramblings relay such. There were a couple moments that I couldn’t help but think how interesting a conversation would be with the guy over a brew and cigarette.
His main shtick was how God has created (spoken) this world as His own masterful piece of art. All things good and bad are in it to glorify Him. Even evil contributes by creating the contrast with which makes His goodness more vibrant and more fully illuminated. Like a black and white picture that, if it had no darkness at all, the light images would have no background to stand out against. He explains it much better. Overall, the book makes you stop and think in different ways about how amazing and full of simple beauty our world is. And even though he never really pins down the gospel explicitly, I would still recommend it to anyone who appreciates imaginative philosophy.
Another book I rather appreciated is an anti-atheist diatribe titled ‘The Devil’s Delusion’ by David Berlinski. I enjoyed this book on multiple levels.

1. Berlinski is both an adroit and accessible philosopher.
2. He cannot be pidgeon-holed as ‘just another gullible creationist’ (he’s a secular Jew educated at Princeton as a doctor of philosophy and was later a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University).
3. He’s dang hilarious.

If there ever becomes available a version of this as an audiobook read by Berlinski himself, I would recommend that, just because his blasé demeanor is so entertaining. He is an undeniably brilliant dude whose cynical approach to the scientific elite is so very refreshing. And though some of the book is well over my head, the majority is clear and understandable. (I want to read it again when I grow up and get more smarter.) What I’ve realized about Berlinski, who makes no claim to faith, is that he has only become honest about the facts of nature, which repeatedly indicates a higher power (‘If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck…’), and he remarkably resembles Dr. Emmitt Brown.
As he spent much of his academic life pointing out discrepancies with naturalism (esp. Darwinian theory) he noticed a mysterious hostility towards his questioning. He was keen to pick up that his evolutionist colleagues were adamant about not letting the ignorant Intelligent Design people get a foot in the door (no matter where the data actually pointed).
He has a pretty easy time kicking over evolutionist’s feeble arguments, and it seems he rather enjoys it. His assertions seem so easy and obvious because, unbeknownst to him, he’s defending the undeniable truth. He doesn’t understand how his peers can be so blind to the disparities within their ideology, but as believers we understand that they suppress the truth and their foolish hearts are darkened as a result.
Again, this book was pretty deep an I honestly didn’t comprehend much of the philosophy he used, nor can I concede to agree with him across the board (since he doesn't know Christ). But still, I think it was a good time and even as I read it I looked forward to reading it again.

That’s all for this time boys and girls; until next time: drink your ovaltine.

O God, may Your Spirit speak in me that I may speak to thee. I have no merit, let the merit of Jesus stand for me. I am undeserving, but I look to Your tender mercy. I am full of infirmities, wants, sin; You art full of grace.

I confess my sin, my frequent sin, my wilful sin; all my powers of body and soul are defiled: a fountain of pollution is deep within my nature. There are chambers of foul images within my being; I have gone from one odious room to another, walked in a no-man's-land of dangerous imaginations, pried into the secrets of my fallen nature.

I am utterly ashamed that I am what I am in myself; I have no green shoot in me nor fruit, but thorns and thistles; I am a fading leaf that the wind drives away; I live bare and barren as a winter tree, unprofitable, fit to be hewn down and burnt. Lord, do You have mercy on me?

You have struck a heavy blow at my pride, at the false god of self, and I lie in pieces before You. But You have given me another master and Lord, Thy Son, Jesus, and now my heart is turned towards holiness, my life speeds as an arrow from a bow towards complete obedience to You. Help me in all my doings to put down sin and to humble pride. Save me from the love of the world and the pride of life, from everything that is natural to fallen man, and let Christ's nature be seen in me day by day. Grant me grace to bear Your will without repining, and delight to be not only chiseled, squared, or fashioned, but separated from the old rock where I have been embedded so long, and lifted from the quarry to the upper air, where I may be built in Christ for ever.