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James__007
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Name: J
Birthday: 1/27/1985
Gender: Male
Interests: God, missions work, guitar, ultimate frisbee, sitting on my duff, computers, the outdoors, trumpet, foosball, and of course the ladies
Expertise: I screw things up pretty well. Can that be an expertise?
Message: message me
AIM:  weenorris
Member Since:
10/20/2004
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| I just got back from a Chinese buffet so I'm trying to write this as quickly as I can before my body decides it's time to say goodnight.
If there's one thing I miss from college, it's the human contact. I really loved all (okay, that's a lie...some of) my classes and I would jump at the opportunity to take more (cheaply). The professors were incredible, I really do believe I got a phenomenal education, but still the first thing I miss is the human contact. And it's not something that happens at public universities either. Maybe it was because it was a small Christian school and people could just assume (albeit, wrongly sometimes) that everyone already had a lot in common and bonded much easier. I don't really understand the why, but for some reason at my small Christian college there was an abundance of physical, human contact.
Here's what I mean: friends were always greeted with a big hug - and not just the one-arm man hug, a real one. When you sit down, like on a couch, it's actually okay to be touching (whereas most of my relationships now, it is not) and you're even on top of each other a little bit (5 guys on a 4 man couch). Guys would sit in each others laps for the hell of it. Was it a little of that awkward college homoeroticism that just goes on somehow? Yeah, a bit at first, but then people realized it wasn't homosexual in nature at all and were actually okay with it. Guys would jump on each others backs or even into their arms for fun. We'd even take afternoon naps piled together sometimes. And of course there was the physical play like wrestling, but there was still a different element to it. .
So why do I miss this so much? I think it's because human contact is so vitally important, but the unspoken culture of today's society simply doesn't allow men to be in real contact with one another. We're told that manly men don't hug or touch - you've seen all the beer commercials; contact is forbidden! A man that can't carry his own weight or needs someone else is hardly a man. Women are the emotional and relational halves so relationships are their job. The same definitely goes for children. Kids are to be wary of an overly friendly man because he could actually be a sexual predator. If a little kid goes up to some strange woman and gives her a hug, it's cute. If the kid hugs a man, it's either unsafe or he has homosexual tendencies. There are plenty of reasons coming from different areas, but they all say the same thing. Men just do not touch.
Girls usually have more contact so I don't know if it was as revelatory for the girls at my school as it was for the guys (also, I never got to be a girl in college so no first-hand experience there). However, there is one thing I remember from a psychology class that sort of solidifies this idea into my head.
 This picture (sorry about the small resolution) was from an experiment in the 50's or 60's looking into the innate need for contact, meaning it isn't just environmental, or learned. You have two fake surrogate mothers for this baby monkey: one has the milk that the baby monkey needs, but the other looks and feels a lot more like a real monkey. They assumed the baby would just go for the milk, since it needed it...but instead, they found the baby monkey had more than just physical needs.
Maybe I'm stupid in comparing myself to that monkey, but I think the point is obvious. People need human contact and the norms of society simply don't allow men that connection. I miss that time from college because it was the first and only time I've been able to experience that aspect of how I think relationships are meant to be. A friend isn't a handshake and twelve inches of space in-between on the couch.
-J
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| I've had strep throat for about the last week. Allow me to let you in on a little secret: it's not fun. Nevermind being woken up in the middle of the night by your own coughing or it being painful when you try to swallow liquids. One thing that has really bugged me in particular is losing my voice. According to my old roommate Erik, I make a lot of noises (no, not those noises). For instance, if someone were to say the word "lightsaber" I would probably make a quick lightsaber sound effect, then carry on with the conversation as if it had never occured. I guess you could say I have the heart of a six year-old (some would say the maturity...but I say "screw them!" because I AM mature, dammit!!). Ahem. When you're six years old, what do you like to do? If you're a girl you like to do stupid things and that's the end of the story, but if you're a boy then you make awesome! That's why we have actions figures, plastics swords, and bedsheets which are better suited as capes. If you're forced against your will to sit still, then you still have the opportunity to be awesome - just ask for a piece of paper and let the battle unfold there. Typically this will include stick figure battles with tanks, machine guns, and awkwardly drawn airplanes. And you know what makes these drawings great? The sound effects. Right now you may be thinking that drawings don't have sound effects, but that's because you're a girl. As the battle rages on, you actually have to make the sound of what you're drawing! The dotted lines coming out of a machine gun mean that you have to make a machine gun sound (don't worry, this is nature for every boy - even if they're from a third world country and don't know what a machine gun is, they can still make the noise). When something explodes (and most everything does), then there is of course a most awesome explosion noise. Also, every airplane in the drawing will crash (becuase you put the wings on the top and bottom instead of the sides) so you have to make the sound of planes hurtling toward the earth.
But you see, there's my problem. Strep throat has temporarily emmasculated me. While I can still carry on a conversation, I can't really make sound effects and this saddens my heart. What's the point of conversation anymore?
Also, it doesn't really help your geriatric 12 lb. miniature dachshund with an inferiority complex to hear Darth Vader calling him instead of the endearing puppy voice that everyone uses with their dog.
Screw you bacteria!!
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| It's hard to not feel like six months weren't wasted. I don't believe they were, but I confess I'm tempted to feel that way sometimes. I finally let someone in. I let her see what really makes me tick. I told her about some of the troubles I've been through that I really don't want to share with people. She had access to my insecurities and vulnerabilities. C.S. Lewis writes that to love is to be vulnerable. I know that. I loved her so she had my heart...and I got burned yet again. Where's the motivation to try again in the future? Supposedly I didn't even do anything wrong. I got the "it's not you, it's me." So I didn't screw up, but I still get my heart wrenched? What the hell?!?
I just feel like all the ways I tried to love her -- putting notes in her pockets to find later, climbing a water tower together at midnight, a surprise trip to see Les Mis, flowers for no reason, midnight poetry emails, family vacations -- were all for naught. It all means nothing now. Or at least, it amounts to nothing...our relationship is broken and gone and will probably stay that way.
People say to me now to just cherish the time you had together - what does that even mean? Be happy that I really knew how to make her smile and just remember that because I'll never get to do it again? I tried "cherishing memories" just the other night. I looked through a photo album on my computer and it just about put me back at square one, depression-wise.
So what now? I just should forget about her? We had been talking seriously about getting married. I still love her, and probably will for a long time. I'll bet it's bad for me, but I'm not that interested in forgetting about her - I really like the girl!! I read somewhere that it takes on average one to three years to get over a serious relationship - I sure hope not. And even if or when I do, do I really want to try and open up yet again to someone else? A battered heart isn't quick to take its armor off again.
I don't even know what I want right now, except to just go asleep and not wake up again until everything is better.
-J.
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| A couple weeks ago in small group, we came across a question in a John Piper book we're going through (Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ) that really brought about a lot of discussion. Why is it dangerous to move away from our Bibles to seek to see God's glory elsewhere? We all agreed that it definitely was, but for a couple different reasons. Mine was that God is simply not what we would expect and we cannot think that we can reason our way to Him or what His priorities or will are. We NEED Scripture to have His nature revealed to us. In thinking about this further, I've found what I think is a really good example of what I mean.
Look at the contrast between Saul and David.
Saul is given the command to destroy the Amalekites for what they did when the Israelites were coming out of Egypt. He is to destroy them entirely; men, women, children, even the animals they owned. However, Saul spared their king, Agag, as well as plenty of livestock.
David doesn't go off to war, where he should have been in the first place. He sees Bathsheeba and de facto rapes her (he's the king, she can't exactly say no), then murders her husband as well as plenty others to cover it up when he finds out she's pregnant.
To me, David would be the detestable one. I would think Saul had shown mercy, but he is rejected while David is credited as being a man after God's own heart. Really?!?! A womanizing, murderer rapist-king is the man after God's own heart?
To put it simply, yes. While both men's actions are evil (Saul's disobedience to a direct command from God leads to later trouble for the Israelites in Babylonian captivity - Haman in Esther is an Agagite), it is how they respond or their hearts that causes God to reject or embrace them. David responds with humble repentence; Saul with pride.
When Samuel confronts Saul about not keeping the Lord's command, he doesn't even see there being a real problem. He claims to have spared the best "to sacrifice to the Lord" (1 Sam. 15:15). Even after Samuel explains how he has sinned against God (the Lord delights in obedience over sacrifice), Saul is still proud, blaming the people and God for giving him bad people. "I have sinned. I have violated the Lord's command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them" (1 Sam. 15:24).
That's not a real repetant heart. That's a heart looking for other people to blame, a true sign of pride. You're the king. Even if your people do something you don't know about and had nothing to do with, it happened on your watch and you take full responsibility. Period.
Then you look at David. When Nathan rebukes him, the response is immediate and the fault is 100% his own. David doesn't try to pass blame onto any of his generals or Bathsheeba for being naked on the roof. No, he has a true repentant heart, broken over how it has broken the heart of God. He is not focused on personal damage, damage done to others, or the mess or consequences of his sin. He is concerned solely with how he alone has sinned against God alone.
They both deserve to be struck down. David did what was evil in the eyes of God. Saul disobeyed a direct command from God. However, it is their response to rebuke that sets them apart. The world (and a god that we would think up) would be more concerned with the gravity of particular sins - some hardly being sins at all, while others unforgivable. God, however, is concerned with our response to him and the repentance of our hearts. God has no need for a mighty man. "What if's" are always debatable, but I happen to think that if Saul had responded with humility and actually been broken over what he had done, then God would have been merciful to him and his kingship.
A desire for the weak and broken over the mighty is not at all what I would expect from a mighty God.
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| I have a bit of a dilemma. You see, I'm one of those people who flips their pillow to get to the cold. I like being warm under many blankets, but the pillow needs to be cold. It's like Applejacks - I can't explain it, it just does.
However, a pillow can only be flipped once. If you flip it a second time, you're just going back to the warm side you were on five minutes earlier. You may get a couple degrees, but that's hardly anything. Heaven forbid you have a lumpy pillow that can't be flipped.
So I'm really hoping that there's a product out there just for me! What I need is the exact opposite of an electric blanket - the always cold pillow. And I don't think putting ice packs in there would help either. No one wants a wet pillow. That would be like waking up and Superdrool had struck again.
Oh, wishful thinking.
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