true or false?

do you agree? if so explain your answer. your answer is wrong. jesus is the answer. why can't you give me a simple answer? you fool. you just have to read your bible. listen to what we taught you in sunday school. oh and do what we say. not what we do. and not question. anything. ever. it's simpler that way. it's just yes or no. black or white. true or false. wrong or right. it's they who are the godless atheists! ok, so we will give you gray too now. 127 shades of gray. are you happy? why do you have to make everything so hard? why do you need color? and sound? and movement? and now beauty - that's so new age. and why extra dimensions? why is a high contrast black and white photograph not enough to describe truth? to encapsulate Gods reality? the heavens declare the glory of God. but why must you make everything so hard? why do you have to say things like, 'there is more computational power in a cubic centimeter of reality than in the most powerful computer ever made'. don't you know we were happier when we were ignorant. when we were dumb. when we knew less. ignorance is bliss. aren't we happier when we hide? wrong but satisfied? ignorant but pacified? so what if reality isn't made of bricks. if the greater reality is quantum probabilities. that God isn't sovereign in the way that you want him to be. that God loves your more than you could possibly have conceived of in the old way. that the world goes deeper than you want it to be. his love exceeds the depths of particles, or is it the waves of the eternal sea. that acknowledging that the very structure of a carbon atom leads to life - is the same as saying 'God is Love'. that being rolled by the ocean waves - is the same as the sound of a thousand tides. that point of view is all you'll ever have. that his grace pervades every scream and every cry. that what we experience as real, is shadow - for real. that what God made and what we live in is more miraculous still. that there is no difference between body, soul and spirit. i know it and you feel it. and what you or i experience as conscious human beings is as great a mystery as there will ever be.

now go and do likewise.

inspired by the truth found in the wave forms of DJ Tiësto's album Just Be
and the cognitive dissonance of questions that miss the point everywhere.

Tom

“If you can’t trust the founders to be truthful in their profiles, how can you trust what anyone says on the site”

TechCrunch on speculation about the age of a MySpace co-founder

I know people who are twenty or thirty years old that lie about their age - they say they are twenty or thirty, when really they are closed minded crotechety old geezers of sixty or more

i know seventy year old men who could whip the ass of strapping young man with one hand tied behind their back, a wink and a smile

i know teenageers and even kids years young than me that know as much as i know about life, get how the world works - enough to cause you wonder if they've been here before

i don't believe your age relates very closely to the number of laps you've made around the sun -

“People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only, are you grown old. And then, indeed as the ballad says, you just fade away.”

Douglas MacArthur

from the mouth of heathens:

iTunes
From underneath the trees, we watch the sky
Confusing stars for satellites
I never dreamed that you'd be mine
But here we are, we're here tonight

Singing Amen, I'm alive
Singing Amen, I'm alive

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day...
when nobody died. And I'm singing

Amen I, I'm alive
Amen I, I'm alive

And in the air the fireflies
Our only light in paradise
We'll show the world they were wrong
And teach them all to sing along

Singing Amen I'm alive
Singing Amen I'm alive

And as we lie beneath the stars
We realize how small we are
If they could love like you and me
Imagine what the world could be

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We'd see the day when nobody died

We'd see the day, we'd see the day
When nobody died

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly ~ Jesus

i sent this to my buddy israel a day or two ago - because it made me think of him. this is what he's about - he's all heart. and i think he's my nemesis. i always wanted one - and i think he's it. i probably have more to learn from him than anyone else in my community.

as i've continued marinating on this song - it's occured to me that somebody has some splainin' to do. someone needs to explain this song - how it can be... and how it sells. how does the christian community explain ... the kingdom of heaven - the very gospel - proceeding from the lips of ... the secular heathen? love, life - glorious life, compassion and hope celebrated.

and what of the events documented in this video? are these from christians? i don't remember anyone announcing Live Aid or Bob Geldof in my church. I don't remember anyone mentioning Betty Williams, or Peter Benenson and Amnesty International(!), or praying for or celebrating Nelson Mandella and what seems like largest movement of forgiveness in human history.

what are the biggest bestest things the christian community, or in particular its "leaders", have *ever* done in comparison?

seriously, what am i missing here???

narrow path indeed.

6 & 7

six things i think are arbitrary:

• spoken languages
• countries (lines on a map)
• laws
• culture
• genres (of music)
• the divisions of scientific disciplines (...more genre's)

seven things i think are true:

• love
• math
• good music
• gender (the complementary concept/aspects of male and female)
• c
• redemption
• life (that life thrives)