Merry Christmas!

Great is Thy Faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

-Thomas Chisholm

waiting

Waiting on the edge, on the brink
Trying just to love, feel, and think
Wondering if impending change
Will lead to great joy or incredible danger?

Mind in a muddle, don't know what to think
Feelings all but shattered, scattered, covered thick in dust
Knowing never calms, when all could change within an eyelid's blink
Or when iron changes faster, turning into rust.

So, calm my soul, dear Lord of Light
And lean me on your vast understanding
Hear my heart, take away all my fright

And whisper of comfort and Love everlasting

The Lord is my shepherd and I am his sheep.
He calms my soul whenever I weep.
He makes me strong when I am most weak

God is good.

Fire

Just like pride, summer comes
Right before the fall
Then it ends, goodbye to friends
Work and school then call

But every season in its time
Comes as God wills it along
Another verse, a harmony
In heaven's symphonic song

That's when nature comes alive
Beautiful visions never tire
Colors man can't comprehend
The trees all
Are on fire

At the end

And
At the end
We lie on our beds in the dark
Gazing towards the heavens
Thinking aloud in silence

It is then we realize infinity is naught
and God is real

Our souls pour out to the darkness
To the Light

We pray

To the one who Loves us
We give love
Worship and Praise
Ask forgiveness and try to make sense of the world
We talk to our father

Conscious fades and we are transported
To a world of dreams
Where we taste Heaven
And Hell

We are shaped every night
By our time with God

We are His image
Angels know not

And
At the end
We lie on our beds in the dark
Gazing towards the heavens
Thinking aloud in silence

beautiful

hopes when all hope is lost
sings when the music has stopped
dances when all others drop
is beautiful

What if?

What if we actually got what we wanted?
What if, at the end of our lives, God gave us the desires of our heart of hearts?
And what if He sometimes gives us what we want now, in time?

"When you get what you want, but not what you need" -Coldplay (fix you).

What if in heaven and hell, we experience the full presence of God?
What if the presence of God could be heaven, or it could be hell depending on where you stand? What if eternity is defined by the presence of God?
"And I was thinking to myself this could be heaven or this could be hell" -The Eagles (Hotel California)

What if we are already in His presence?
What if we have the rest of our lives to decide how we relate to God?
What if we can't decide?
What if eternity is now?

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'" -C.S. Lewis (The Great Divorce)

What if we actually got what we wanted?

Faithful

God is faithful.
Top of the world,
Or at rock bottom.
In crowds full of people,
Alone in the dark.
God is there,
And he is faithful.

Linguistic Windex

The study of rhetoric, I have learned, is not the study of the art of speaking. One would think that oration would be the main emphasis in the education of an orator, but it is not. Words, I have come to realize are mere noises, vibrations caused by vibrating tissue, apart from the meanings behind them. In order to speak, one must think. In order to speak well, one must think well. Rhetoric is the art of thinking. Public speaking is as much about critical listening as it is about making speeches. The ability to process information and organize it into a logical flow is at the heart of oration. This is Logos.

That is, though, only part of the education of an orator....

Realer than Real

Sounds fade
Colors vague
Smells escape
As thoughts lose shape
Dim perceptions too vague for words
Words are too vague for you

Reasoning with the Lord

"Stop bringing me meaningless offerings!"

Isaiah 1:13

"Why should you be beaten anymore?
Why do you persist in rebellion?
Your whole head is injured,
your whole heart is afflicted.
From the sole of your foot to the top of your head
there is no soundness -
Only wounds, welts, and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged
or soothed with oil."

Isaiah 1:5-6

"'Come now, let us reason together,'
says the LORD.
'Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
If you are willing and obedient,
you will eat the best from the land;
but if you resist and rebel,
you will be devoured by the sword.'
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

Isaiah 1:18-20

"Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep His commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.
For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.:

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

"'...what is the greatest commandment?'
Jesus replied: "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

Matthew 22:36-37

"What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer"

-Joseph M. Scriven-

Twisted

Bent, crooked, twisted, broke
Anything that isn’t straight
Evil’s not its own entity,
But anything that's not quite right

Slightly shifted focus,
Malicious overtones;
All are evil equally
When all is said and done

The devil aims to hit us hard
Right where we always place our heart
He always seems to slightly twist
That which we can't bear to part

At the barricade

At the barricade we left our lives
For months on end we gave our all
We parted ways and said goodbyes
After the curtain started to fall.

We told a great story which we dearly love
And made the audience feel sublime
Songs of redemption that deeply move
Poems of mercy and love divine

The final page has finally closed
Today is tomorrow; tomorrow’s here
The moments of which mem’ry’s composed
Misery, elation, and the audience cheer

All covered in dust...

Thinking in silence, praying to God
Scattered emotions all covered in dust
Should I freely give my heart
And with whom can I trust?

You see love another way
In Faith she truly understands
It’s like another language whose
Translation baffles words of man.

You refuse to see His love
But God is what sets her apart.
It tears me to see you alone
But you can’t understand my heart.

My heart remains unspoken of
And till God wills it shall remain.
I wait at rest until the day
When I can freely love.

Halfway to Heaven

Halfway to heaven
Upon wings of riveted steel
I took flight and saw beautiful lights
So beautiful that even
Compared to them, real wasn't real.
Stars in the heavens, and cities at night.

Oh, lights on the ground
How you glimmer, sparkle, and shine!
Your beautiful chaos
Is forged bright in circles and lines.

What man has worked
His whole life to create
God has used
To show He is great.

His creativity mirrored,
You shine in the night
And in the darkness
You spread forth His light.

Inspiration for a Blog..

I had a place in which I write
Accessible to my peers
Words flowing thoughtfully,
Poems, passions, words held dear.

A friend of mine quite liked this world
She also liked to write.
So,
She made a place all of her own
And "Honestly" tried to emulate.

My friend Allison created a blog entitled, "Honestly?" a few days ago. She's got some of her poetry on it, and some of it's pretty good. What she does lack is people to read what she writes, so take a look, and if you like it, keep reading! (and comment from time to time. :-p)

http://ams0330.blogspot.com/

Blood of boys

I stand on a field covered with blood
Of boys who were only just men.
Men not of age - some not more than ten –
But men on account of what happened to them.

I came across a boy like me
Seventeen, but died with seventy.
His body left out in the street.
The courage of his visage lost to decay.

He died for what meant most to him
Freedom and love for those who now cry
The things he’ll never take part of again
For freedom and love he died.

Mr. Weyandt

I used to think that a man
Had only life and name as his
Here today, tomorrow gone
Preserved alone in memories

Now I know that is not true
A man who died, yet on he lives
In mem'ries, yes, but greater still
In lives he's touched, the love he gives.

A hero, one to imitate
Is this beautiful man to me
Unfailing love in the sight of God
Is his legacy to me.

In Finite

In Algebra, infinity is unattainable. No matter how far you can count, you can never get there. Math even uses a parenthesis notation to indicate that infinity can't be included because it can't be reached.

Calculus makes the leap from finite math to that of infinite. We still can't define infinity, but we can work with it. Infinity is no more attainable than algebra, but it is real, it is tangible.

You know, every time I think of Infinity, it reminds me of God. Not in the algebra sense, in inconceivability, but I know Him, and He is real.

The difference between an intangible abstract to a tangible reality is of vast significance. the difference between them is, well, infinity.

Love Immortal

Love eternal never dies
But I’m immortal, mortal you.
I could live forever alone,
Or I could die with you.

Forever alive with only name
Living, not loving, is my shame
'Tis better to have loved and died
Than live fore’er unsatisfied.

silent memories

I sit here alone with no one to talk to.
Silence of heartbeats and whispers of soul.
Companions are daydreams that certainly aren't you.
But can memories really console?

Memories make the silence less silent.
Like Dante's Beatrice, they are just a sign
Until the time I next see you again
Pointing to beauty and love divine.

Everlasting Song

I wrote you a song
With images fair
Of beautiful eyes,
Long golden hair

Of beauty of souls,
Noblest minds
Perfection of pathos,
Hearts that are kind.

The words never change
Their images mirror
perfection in heav'n
incorp'rated here.

The deep tearing pain
My tears now show;
The reason you changed
I never will know.

Or maybe it's me?
And I'm in the wrong?
I guess time will answer
When you hear my song.

Goodness of God

All of life...
The times we laugh till our sides hurt...
The times we cried till our souls ached...
...Can be summed up in three short words....

God is Good.

The Strength of God

I have always liked to think
That God made things with fashioned wood.
A carpenter, a manly man
His build was strong, his work was good.

In pictures Christ is never shown
As a dark and burly stud,
But in truth this strong man came
For me, a wretch, to shed his blood.

Friends

"So I was reading Moby Dick the other day..."

"With cheese." "What!?" "Exactlyyy."

"Hehehe Why am I laughing? hehehe"

"Get your lotioney hands off my peanuts!"

"George put it in her suitcase and Grace had a cow."

"Um-brella"

"Girl, You HUGE! You Hunkey!"

"Helen Keller went to town..."

"I don't want you to die. I'm just trying to kill you, that's all."

"Well heLLO there."

"It's just you and 'all the single ladies'. The odds are good, man, but Oh, the goods are odd"

"You're damaging my cool."

"Shiny!"

"is there a train coming?"

"You got a problem with my height?"

"Wow, that was blonder than Abbie." "Sorry, Abbie."

"I see your awkward and raise you..."

"Not enough evers"

These are all inside jokes from my trip, and just a sampling at that. These are way better than just a bunch of pictures. Pictures are great, but the only time you can take them is when you aren't participating in something. If you don't get any of these, it's because you weren't there. ;)



I love my friends. :-)

Promises

I just came out of possibly the best show this year, I got to swing dance on Friday night, I'm going to visit some of my best friends in 5 days, and my sister is getting married on the 28th. God is wonderful to me. He supports me in everything I do. No matter where I go, or what I do, God promises to be with me in it all, guiding me. beyond that, you know what is even better? God keeps his promises. :)

Lonely

I just remembered that my Bible is out in the car...

...I miss it.

Mirror...

I don't know, what do you think?

Please, my dear, do not fear,

Please, dear friend, please do not cry.

I’ll catch your freely falling tears

And gently, softly dry your eyes.

I never meant to mean so much

I guess my heart just wasn’t clear

I never realized as much

Untill I gazed into a mirror.

Your eyes were that mirror to me

Their spark shining like starry skies

Mere words can’t capture what I saw

But love stared back from loving eyes.

I cannot offer more than this;

This certainly is not the end.

I want not to mean any more

Than a genuine dear friend.

Stimulatin', ain't it?

English 1120
10 February 2009

Stimulating, Isn’t it?

The most recent large bill going through Washington is the proposed economic stimulus package backed by President Obama entitled H.R.1, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The bill has passed through the House of Representatives, and has just today passed in the Senate. It will certainly be hacked away at by politicians and economists to resolve differences between the House of Representative and the Senate versions of the bill. Once that is done, the final version will be voted upon and, if it hasn’t lost the majority, it will become law. Obama has said that if it does indeed pass through both houses, he will most certainly sign it.
The proposed bill would authorize the government to spend approximately 838 billion dollars of government money to create jobs and help stimulate the economy to rise back out of its recession. Whether or not that is the best course, or even if the government should even be given that much power is a matter of controversy. In the Christian Science Monitor, Robert Higgs asks the question, “Should the federal government be doing any of this?” It is an astute question, and a hot topic among consumers and economists alike. Higgs argues that historically, the government has been restricted in its power to spend large sums of money till the 1930-40’s with the employment act of 1946 (Ibid).
An unnamed CNN writer, in the article Obama pushes stimulus plan in hard-hit Fort Myers said of Obama during his speech in Ft. Myers, Fl. On Feb 9th that “He argued that only the federal government has the power to break the "vicious cycle" gripping the U.S. economy, and said the package would create up to 4 million new jobs.”
Rush Limbaugh made a good point in the Wall Street Journal when he said, “There's a serious debate in this country as to how best to end the recession. The average recession will last five to 11 months; the average recovery will last six years. Recessions will end on their own if they're left alone. What can make the recession worse is the wrong kind of government intervention.”
CNN authors Brianna Keilar and Dana Bash quoted Obama’s speech at Ft. Myers, “’We can't wait and see and hope for the best," he said. "I believe in hope, but I also believe in action. We can't afford to posture and bicker and resort to the same failed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place.’”
The spending of that large of a sum of money violates basic principles of economics. An unnamed author writes about these principles in the Wall Street Journal, saying,
"A dollar doled out in jobless benefits may well be spent by the worker who receives
it…But that same dollar can't be conjured out of thin air. The government has to take that dollar away from someone else -- either in higher taxes, or by issuing new debt in the form of a bond. The person who is taxed or buys the bond will have $1 less to spend. If the beneficiary of that $1 spends it on something less productive than the taxed American or the lender would have, then the net impact on growth will be negative." (The Stimulus Tragedy)
If that dollar is pulled from thin air, then a dollar that represents goods produced or work done is then only worth half of what it was worth, resulting in inflation. The way the government makes “fast cash” is to sell bonds; loans with interest to be paid back at a later date. Bonds are sold to foreign countries, corporations, and individuals who invest in our economy, creating a national debt. The US will have to pay back that money with interest in the future. As of January 27th, the estimated amount to be spent from 2009-2019 would be 815.9 billion dollars, with the debt service (interest) at 347.1 billion dollars, totaling 1.163 trillion dollars. (Elmendorf, 2). That figure has increased over the past two weeks, after going through the House and the Senate. The debt service is a figure that hasn’t been very widely reported. Think of a car salesman who tells a customer that he needn’t pay any money for four years. At the end of those four years, the customer will have to pay interest on top of the price of the car. Like this example, the debt service seems to have fallen under the radar of most people, but it is a significant amount of debt. This money will ultimately come from the taxpayers’ pockets when the government has to pay it back.
According to data from the World Bank (US Report, GDP: 2007) and my own calculations, using the figure of 1.163 trillion dollars (economic stimulus package with interest added), the net spending proposed by The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 totals to 8.4 percent of the US national economy. That is a strikingly high percentage, especially coming after the 700 billion dollar bailout in October, which totaled 5 percent of the economy. Conn Carroll notes in her February third article on the Heritage Foundation blog that “The deficit-spending package passed by House Democrats already is bigger than 168 of the 180 national economies measured by the World Bank.” It is staggering to think; with the amount they propose to spend, they could buy Australia. (Australia Report, GDP: 2007).
To add some perspective to conceptualize the amount, Carroll quotes Jim Geraghty, who astutely points out that if you spent one million dollars a day since “Christ’s birth in year zero one, times 365, times 2009, gets you 733,285,000,000, or a bit over $733 billion. (Yes, I’m leaving out leap years.) You’re not even three-quarters of the way there” (‘More Than a Million’). Even that doesn’t get us beyond inconceivability. If you represented that in pennies and melted that down into a solid block, the block would be approximately 10.7 million solid cubic feet of copper.
This is all ultimately taxpayers money that is being spent. “The government does not bail out anyone. Taxpayers do. The government just decides to which corporations they want to redistribute our money” (Bouman). Bouman goes on to say that the taxpayer is the one who best knows how his own money should be spent, and he ought to be the one to spend it, not the government. (par. 2). My eight year old brother, Stephen, when the stimulus bill was explained to him, said he thought it was a “goof-ball idea.” He explained, “They’re taking all our money and then we’ll go bankrupt.” Stephen seems to have a better grasp of basic economics than the majority of politicians in Washington.

Works Cited
“Australia Report.” World Bank. Sept. 2008. 10 Feb. 2009. http://ddp- ext.worldbank.org/ext/ddpreports/ViewSharedReport?&CF=1&REPORT_ID=9147&RE QUEST_TYPE=VIEWADVANCED&HF=N&WSP=N
Bauman, Michael. “The Case Against Government Bailouts” Christian Anti-Communism Crusade. Jan. 2009. Feb.10 2009. http://www.schwarzreport.org/SchwarzReport/2009/0109.pdf
Carroll, Conn. “If the Pelosi-Obama-Reid Trillion Dollar Dept Plan Were a Country” The Heritage Foundation. 3 Feb. 2009. 9 Feb. 2009 http://blog.heritage.org/2009/02/03/if- the-pelosi-obama-reid-trillion-dollar-debt-plan-were-a-country/
--- “More Than a Million a Day Since Jesus Christ’s Birth” The Heritage Foundation. 5 Feb. 2009. 9 Feb. 2009 http://blog.heritage.org/2009/02/05/more-than-a-million-a-day- since-jesus-christs-birth/
Elmendorf, Douglas W. Letter to Paul Ryan. Congressional Budget Office 27 Jan. 2009. 10 Feb 2009. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9970/1-27-RyanLetter-09stimulus.pdfHiggs, Robert. “Instead of stimulus, do nothing – seriously.” The Christian Science Monitor. 9 Feb. 2009. 9 Feb. 2009. http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0209/p09s01-coop.html
Keilar, Brianna, Dana Bash. “For House and Senate, it's time to compromise.” CNN. 10 Feb. 2009. 10 Feb. 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/10/stimulus.next/index.html#cnnSTCText
Limbaugh, Rush. “My Bipartisan Stimulus” The Wall Street Journal. 29 Jan. 2009. 9 Feb. 2009. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123318906638926749.html
“Obama pushes stimulus plan in hard-hit Fort Myers” CNN. 10 Feb. 2009. 10 Feb. 2009 http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/10/obama.florida/index.html
“The Stimulus Tragedy.” The Wall Street Journal. 6 Feb. 2009 9 Feb 2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123396623933859023.html
“United States Report.” World Bank. Sept. 2008. 10 Feb. 2009. http://ddp- ext.worldbank.org/ext/ddpreports/ViewSharedReport?&CF=1&REPORT_ID=9147&RE QUEST_TYPE=VIEWADVANCED&HF=N&WSP=N

Shame...

"Act and React were in a boat. Act fell out. Who was left?"
"React."
*jumps* "AHH!"


I know, I know... Don't quit my day job...

Painful Grace

Ever read that Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin asks his mother for a Cigarette? She gives it to him, he tries it and gags. His mother asks if he learned a lesson, and to good humorous effect, he responds, "*GASP* Yes. Trusting parents is hazardous to your health."

I was talking with a good friend on Sunday when she made reference to some of the dark things she had done and the pain that came about as a result and she said, "I have not been 'shown the way' by God." At first, this struck me as a Job story, but it was not. It was not a righteous man in pain. The pain that this girl felt was a result of her actions and reactions. This is not a story of God doing wrong and inflicting pain, or even a case of divine apathy. My friend, Juliet, who is in constant pain that will never leave her her whole life is a case for study of the book of Job.

Sometimes God gives us exactly what we want. When he does, it is utterly terrifying. Why, then, are we surprised when we get it? When God lets us do exactly as we please and reap the rewards of our actions, why do we then blame Him for the pain we suffer as a result? God remains here perfectly blameless, and still in control. To reach out and save us from our error is pure, undeserved grace. When he lets us have our own way, it is in fact no lack of love. If we are blind to our error, sometimes the only way to wake us up to the fact is to let us burn for it. If God didn't care, He wouldn't care. Thank God for letting us (sometimes literally) almost kill ourselves.

Of watery fire and blogs inspired

Here is a poem written by a friend to which I wrote a poem as a comment, and we wend back and forth a few times. It's actually kind of neat. You'll have to excuse my meter, as I wrote it rather fast. Her poetry is not like my own at all, but it is good. It's just different to what I am used to, as I m sure will be plain when you go and read it.

http://hannenslifeadventures.blogspot.com/2009/01/beautiful-destruction.html


Hannen is one of my friends from Theater who has gotten into the world of tech and loves it! She said that she liked my blog so much that she started her own and I was quite flattered. It's so neat to be able to see that what I say on here is heard. I do hope that you all would feel free to drop in on her blog from time to time and make some comments and give her some feedback. I'm sure she would love all y'all's classical musings!

No blog tonight...

Tonight I thought I ought to write
A poem, thought, or anecdote
Tonight, though, I write out of sight
And in my journal I'll write a note.

Sometimes I just don't want to sit and type out to the world what I'm thinking. Sometimes I need to simply write out what's on my heart on paper that only God and I will ever see. Not that other eyes could not read, but another soul could not comprehend. So tonight, I write where you will never see it, or if you do, you won't know.