The Sharp Pencil (Part 2)

So as I was saying, or writing, is that writing is important. But writing is not nearly as important as writing well, but who is the judge? Well everyone is me, you, kids, adults, grandpa. How? I believe that writing is good when it impacts someone. Now there is lots of writing out there that is good, yet spurs on evil thoughts, or false beliefs. So we as Christians have a duty to write not only good writing but GOOD writing, writing that pleases God. I used to believe that it was pretty cool to curse in my writing to emphasize what I am saying, or make it "stronger". But people listen (or read) when the language is cleaned up.
But even if your writing is awful, you are STILL contributing to the world of literature, so if you are terriblizing the world with your stupid blog then STOP, you are tainting literature.
Think about it this way: picture all of writing as a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. We must keep feeding the lake. (That was from Jean Rhys, I didn't put it into quotation marks because people never read quotes, but since it wasn't in quotes you have already read it.)
Rhys says that we must keep feeding the lake of literature, I agree, but don't you dare throw toxic waste in the lake!
What I am mostly trying to say is that I am just so happy that the internet was made (besides the porn) so that I can be a contributor to the lake, so that I can have my OWN tiny little stream.

On a side note, Hannah Patterson has been in Austria for the past couple of weeks and has been unable to write. Too bad!
Side note No. 2 Halloween is coming up and I am so excited, I am going to be a shooting star, with a GUN, get it?! A "shooting" star!

-Justin (not a walrus)

The Road Ends (unabridged)

Death could possibly be one of the most talked about subjects; philosophers analyze it, scientists attempt to beat it, and people fear it. It is also perhaps one of the most mysterious subjects to most men; there are many speculations on why we die and what happens to our souls after death. Nearly every religion has a theory as to where we go when we die. Death is something that every human being takes part in; it does not matter if that individual is rich or poor, powerful or weak, smart or moronic. Everyone has the same end to their existence.
So what is the meaning of our existence if everyone fades away to dust? Do we have purpose, or do we just invent it in our minds? Everyone has a theory as to why humanity exists. Even if that theory is that we exist for no reason, it is still a theory. One of the most common and modern goals, in American life especially, is success. We often measure our time on earth by how successful someone becomes before they pass away. Americans look for success in a variety of different areas: success in the business world, in family life or social circles, or generosity, kindness, peace, beauty, or the general pursuit of happiness. When we say “so and so led a good life” what do we mean?
We have many examples in this world of the pinnacle of success, many of those men and women could very well have happiness. Even if they are happy, do they feel fulfilled, like they have purpose? Does Bill Gates have the most meaningful life because he is the richest man on earth? Is President Obama, arguably the most powerful man on earth, worth more than any other American? Or how about Michael Jordan, one of the world’s biggest sports idols, is he of greatest worth and meaning? Are the world’s most influential wealthy people happier or more important than me or you? Do they feel more fulfilled than you or I? I believe that they might fear death more than I do; they have more materialistic things to lose. If success doesn’t make a life more significant, then what does? Let me propose something different.
I believe that we have the wrong approach, because the writer of Galatians says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (2:20) yet us think about that for a moment, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. First we know that the author has not physically died, so what I believe he is saying is that Christ has taken over his life, his wants and desires. The author of Galatians wants
A lot of times in my teenage life I have bashed on Christian rock bands, because they can't rock and their messages sound occasionally fluffy and biblically fallible. But Switchfoot put great words into what I am trying to say in their song “A Beautiful Letdown”: It was a beautiful letdown/The day I knew/That all the riches this world had to offer me/would never do/In a world full of bitter pain/And bitter doubts/I was trying so hard to fit in/until I found out/I don't belong here. Switchfoot says that the world is a letdown, but that it is beautiful because it there is so much more to live for. Switchfoot is a popular band, and they are fairly wealthy, they had to be reminded that fame and riches don’t satisfy the soul and that this earth isn’t their home so they should be thinking about God and his kingdom.
Without Jesus we live without purpose, lost, scared, alone, shameful, desperate, confused, and never living a significant life. We must remember our life is just a blip on the radar screen of eternity. In all honesty we aren’t significant, we are just meaty vessels for God’s work, but lucky for us God cares about the meaty vessels he made. He has a plan for us and he is going to save as many other vessels as he allows and then those vessels putting their trust in Him will try to save more meaty vessels, until every vessel has heard that God came to this earth, a perfect man and died on a tree two thousand years ago to save all the stupid insignificant meat bags, and he happened to be the Lord Jesus Christ. Then Christ, being the perfect sacrifice came back to life defeating all sins!
So who cares about money and sex and parties and drugs and cars and yachts and houses? All of it will not stand the test of time, it will all fade away; it’s all a letdown. When we invest our live in anything other than Jesus it will leave us feeling empty and void. There is this giant crevasse in our souls and only God is great enough to fill it, everything else feels like pouring a glass of water into a dried up lake bed.
When I was a child I had two friends at separate times that I considered to be best friends. Both of my friends used drugs, and both of them came out of the drugs with very different stories. My first friend’s name was Bobby, him and I were kindergarten pals, we ran around, talked about football, played with dogs, made forts, drew pictures, I always looked up to him like an older brother. To me Bobby seemed to be invincible, he wasn’t afraid of anything. Bobby moved away when we got to second grade and I didn’t see him for eight years. Then one day in July of 2005 when Bobby and I were both 15 my mom came into my room and she was crying and when I asked her what was wrong, she said that Bobby had killed himself by overdosing on drugs. Death can happen at any moment, it is not just for the old or the weak, when we were kids Bobby was the most spirited and courageous kid I knew, I thought he was invincible.
My second friend has a similar story, but with a better ending. My friend Sam was into drugs for a year, and he turned his back on God. So Sam moved out of his house and was doing whatever he wanted every day. Sam slept as much as he wanted, ate as much as he wanted, showered as little as he wanted, and got high whenever he wanted. He was “in control” of his own life, but what he would not admit for an entire year is that life was horrible! Sam missed his family and friends and a warm bed, and most of all Sam missed God. We can try and run away, we can try and pretend that we are in control, or we have the power to make ourselves truly happy. But as humans we are constantly trying to be happy with things that aren’t God. When we turn away from God we become trapped in our sins and inadequacies.
Both Bobby and Sam Struggled with Drugs and both of them turned their backs on God saying, “God, you’re not powerful enough to handle the things I am going through, I got my own life.” I believe that most people at one point or another wish for a life had no responsibilities; it is not an uncommon thought that crosses the mind. It is part of the same lie that Satan has been telling humanity since the beginning of time, “God is holding out on you, sin is actually fantastically wonderful and it brings thrill and excitement into life, just turn your back on God.” Satan wants us to participate in drugs, pre-marital sex, drunkenness, and addiction because it slowly brings us away from God. A life without God is a life without meaning.
God is in control, and the best part is that He knows what we want better than we do, He sees past, present, and future and He wants what is best for us. All we have to do is put our trust in Him as we obey and give Him the glory for all the good things he asks us to do. It is going to be hard, and it’s going to feel like a long time, but in the end we will have had a life of meaning.
Mary Oliver speaks to me when she says, “When it is over… I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.” In her poem “When Death Comes”. We are visitors in this world; we are here for only a blip of time on the radar screen of eternity. Even though most people on this earth assume that this life is all we have they still take advantage of the time we have. These people waste minutes and days watching TV or going shopping; why would they do this when they seriously believe they are only going to live approximately eighty years? I would think they would want to spend as much time as they could try to make anyone else’s eighty years better. What about us as Christians, we have multiple purposes and many missions from God. So what I take away from Oliver’s poem is that one day the world will end and it will all be over, and everyone will stand before God and there will be people who impacted the world standing right next to you and me, and there will be people who didn’t. I know that personally I don’t want to be the guy who stands before Christ and says, “Dude, I know you asked me to go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. BUT, I was too lazy and it was more fun to smoke pot and have sex with my girlfriend, hope you don’t mind Jesus.”
I just want to end with this, Life is SHORT, it is tainted by sin, and it is so easy to be distracted now a days. But this is not the end, everyone is going to go on after they die, the only question is “where?” It breaks God’s heart when people turn away from him, when you or I turn away from him and say, “I got this God, stay out of my life.” It breaks my heart to look around at so many friends, family, and strangers and know that they are going to hell and I can do something about it, you know who gave me the desire to save people for the kingdom of God. We have purpose, and we fulfill our purpose we live a good life, and we die and stand before Jesus and he says, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

Writing with a sharp pencil...

I was just surfing the web and I realized that most every blog I see is vomit on a page. So I came up with some things that sets apart good writing from bad writing. How do we think clearly? How do we process things logically? So one of my professors helped me out with some things we can do so that we can make our flakey overrated blogs into coherent thoughts.
So in order to write clearly we have to think clearly. So there are two main “pit falls” that cause poor thinking: the first one is PRIDE, when we are prideful we can get stuck in the illusion that what matters most is us. Our selfishness and egotistic mindsets will reflect onto our writing and ultimately give off a vibe of self-centeredness. Who wants to read what a prideful person writes?
The second “pit fall” is the opposite of pride, insecurity, insecurity breeds literature that reflects a lower view of self worth than is actually true. Insecurity creates writing that is filled with loathing, self doubting, self pity and unappealing content all around.
Not only are there “pit falls” there also barriers that hinder us from thinking clearly and ultimately writing clearly. The first one is being busy; when we are busy we are distracted. We especially have this problem in the United States where we never have time to think, just do, mindlessly. The second barrier which is closely related is information overload; nowadays we have so much technological clutter that it causes us to think less on our own. If we want information we don’t search our brains we search Google! We don’t fill our brains like people used to when they didn’t have computers and cell phones. And the last barrier is tiredness, but that one is more obvious.
One tip to writing well is this, if you read well then you will think well and if you think well… you will write well! So read intelligent books!

I was going to write more but I decided to split it up into two posts so standby for part 2!

-justin

Update 2 followers

Hey sorry Hannah and I haven't had very much time to write recently since she is going down under and I am studying at Biola. I promise that I'll have a new post up this week; it will be about writing well and what that constitutes. I just want to thank Andy and Katie for staying on board for the upstart of this blog.And just remember "To write with a broken pencil is pointless..."
-Justin