Wednesday, April 25, 2007

It's Dead Week and I'm Alive 2

Awesome things about Dead Week so Far, with additions:

1) I've got my big theology projects for the semester done.
2) Last history paper is done.
3) The Concert Band / Jazz Band concert. A friend named C.J. pulled of what I believe to be the most amazing drum-work I've ever seen live. For the record he was doing the long drum solo from a rearrangement of West Side Story by Bill Redie. It involved craploads of crazy-awesome stuff.

The old #1 on the list got cancelled because the weather wasn't as good yesterday as it was Monday. The "to do" list remains the same, but adding packing.

I'm thinking about what I have to read this summer. So far, in alphabetical order (excluding articles like "an" and "the", the list is:

The Fountainhead

Gödel, Escher, Bach
Good Omens
Neuromancer

If anyone's got any suggestions, please let me know. Also, I know I actually managed to generate some feedback with a couple of posts a couple of posts ago; that said I'll answer to it sometime in the next couple of weeks. Also, look for the theology cards to start happening again the Sunday after finals.

Monday, April 23, 2007

It's Dead Week and I'm Alive

Awesome things about Dead Week so far:

1) The weather so far is gorgeous just like last year, which was awesome awesome weather.
2) I've got my big theology projects for the semester done.

Things yet to do:

1) Survive homework, which if teachers follow regulations, apparently can't be assigned this week. I'll probably get something due on Thursday or Friday anyway. The biggest thing here is a small paper (assigned before this week) that's due Wednesday.
2) Survive finals. Basically I'm going to start putting together my studying / not getting killed by finals binder tonight. It's also going to involve a lot of backlogged reading.

Also, I really enjoy that feeling I get when I've just turned in a big term paper and get to go drop off my sources at the library, and be rid of them for, well, however long the break is, at least.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Good People

Partly as a matter of theology and partly as a matter of experience, I stopped believing in good people a long time ago. A short while after I discovered this, I no longer believe in bad people. I do, however, believe in sinful people.

The theology: Original sin, and the notion of "who can be good but God alone?" seems to cancel out the notion of good people. Coupled with the experience of what I know of myself versus having been the 'good kid' at various points in my life, this pretty much destroys my belief in the idea of an inherently good human nature.

Believing in bad people: Things get a bit more nuanced here. I don't think people are neutral either, but I don't think they're bad. At least, we cannot really speak of 'bad persons' anymore than we can speak of a 'bad humanity', or a 'bad human nature.' Essentially, as far as words like 'good' or 'bad' go, we're all one or all the other. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." So to single out 'bad people' aside from the whole human race would seem arbitrary at best.

Believing in sinful people: If all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, we may accurately speak of our state as one that needs redemption, but across the board. We may accurately say that without grace we would certainly be, as it were, screwed.

Thoughts?

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Dreaming Your Dreams

So one of my favorite songs of all time is by a group called Hybrid, entitled "Dreaming Your Dreams." I love the construction, I love the flow, I love the music / beat / everything else...The question I'm wondering about is regarding the lyrics. I think it's at least an alright love song if not my favorite, but, well, the only lyrics are in the chorus and they are as follows:

"'Cause where you're going, I'll follow you (follow you)
And what you're feeling, I'll feel for you (feel for you)
And what you're hearing, I'm singing for you
And when you're sleeping, I'm dreaming your dreams for you"

Tell me if I'm just crazy, but that last line sounds like some combination of sweet and stalkerish. I think it's mostly the "when you're sleeping" part that does it. Opinions?