Sara's Birthday

Irene, Beth

We had Sara's birthday party at the place last night. It was a lot of fun. There were just enough people there to have some decent conversations.

Shannon, Sara

Alyson did a really good job decorating the place. Poor thing had to take a nap earlier today because she was so wiped out with everything.

Alyson, Juan

After the party Sara and I caught up with everything. Her latest idea is to go to Jerusalem in June. Crazy, I tell ya! She'll want to take the GRE so that she can go to school there. The biggest thing she worries about being in a church of only seven people is them hearing her sing. So we're going to work on voice lessons too. Sometimes, all I can do is *shrug*. Get this, when she wanted to leave, I had to drive her to her car — she didn't want to walk into the party alone so she had Beth meet her a few streets away. Huh? Anyway, it's so good to have her back.

Sara, Eddy

Afterwards I talked to Faith on the phone for a bit; sounds like she had a pretty tough day. Or month. It was good to be able to be there for her.

It's interesting that when she asked me if I was excited to go to Hawaii, I realized that I haven't even really thought about it. This week has been so busy, and I've had to try to cram so much into it before I leave, that I'm figuring it will almost be anti-climatic to all of a sudden spend a week relaxing with only two, or four other people I know. Right now all I can imagine is doing a whole bunch of nothing. It's nice to think that there are so many people for me to spend time with. Especially considering that I didn't feel that way not that long ago.

Jon & Dung's Wedding

Nick, Martin

Well I'm starting to feel the wane of my enthusiasm for this narcissistic art of blogging. Or maybe it's just that I've had too busy of a week.

Curtis, Guillermo

This weekend was Jon and Dung's wedding. It was a very beautiful service, and everyone looked so happy. It was really cool that Steve was one of the officiating ministers too, as he just came back from his year of ministering in Japan. It was pretty much the first time I've heard him speak since he left, and I was having flashbacks.

Dung, Jon at the reception

Steve also preached this morning, which I felt went really well. What was particularly moving was that there were actually some people here from the Tokyo church; they happened to be in town so Steve had them share a bit at the end of service. They were so humble and respectful in that way that I will dare to say is characteristic of Japanese people and the quality I find the most admirable.

Mother-son, father-daughter dance

Actually I was pleasantly surprised how the service went, considering that pretty much all of the song-leaders were either sick or incapacitated or otherwise unavailable. Luckily enough Richard and Nick were there.

Vic, Dung

There's a show on Michael and the rest of the Jacksons on VH1 right now. I think there's another show on LaToya at some point too. That whole family makes me so sad.

Jaxon, Jeric, Mae

Nick and I have hung out quite a bit this weekend. On Friday night we went out to dinner and ran into Eric and Rebecca at Ki-Ku-Ya. Faith joined us later on for coffee and then we worked on some singing after that. Nick was part of the great turnout to ultimate frisbee on Saturday too. We had some two-and-a-half hours worth of rugged athleticism. Good stuff.

One neat thing that happened this weekend was during our household quiet-time. I shared a bit from a book I'm reading, The Different Drum, specifically a part about true community and how it differs from from what we typically call community. We got through two of the four "stages" that groups go through: pseudocommunity, and chaos. What was really encouraging for me was that while Carlos was praying, he prayed about the household and how it was probably the closest thing he had to true community — a place where people can be themselves, where we work conflicts out even through seemingly difficult issues. I was really encouraged. As for the last two stages — well, that will have to wait for another blog.

Evolution and Christianity

As a young Christian I figured that the challenge of atheism would be challenging in the beginning, but that as my faith grew and as I drew closer to God the doubts would diminish to a quiet whisper as my spiritual years accumulated. Perhaps I imagined it somewhat like hurdles in a race; as a young boy each one is a daunting obstacle that requires a focused leap with both feet. As the boy grows, the hurdles become less intimidating and become easier to cross. Eventually a good runner is able to take each hurdle in a stride that is indistinguishable from one running on flat ground.

These days I imagine it a bit more like a rugged uphill mountain course. At first the terrain is challenging, but negotiable as the boy becomes more agile. But though the runner grows in his skills, the challenges of the race grow to continue the test.

I never considered atheism a very credible idea; I subscribed closely to C. S. Lewis' idea that atheism is just too simple (from Mere Christianity, I believe). Briefly, one of his main premises is that everyone inherently knows a sense of right and wrong; therefore there must be some absolute standard that all of our moral compasses are hinting at. This idea seemed to make a lot of sense.

A conversation with my father challenged this thought though, and I did not have any reasonable response. His argument was that certainly, everyone has a sense of right and wrong, but that this is only with respect to the community. And as an illustration he noted the fact that, if a man is alone on a desert island, is there really such a thing as a "right and wrong" for this man? Um, hm. *shrug* Good point. Perhaps I am not recalling C. S. Lewis' arguments accurately. My feeling, though, is that I am left without any argument against atheism that can be gleaned simply from observation.

The other subtle leaning I have felt over the years is that towards evolution. What I mean is, the possibilty that the bible simply happens to describe those practices that promote survival of the fitest most effectively, but there really is no omnipotent benifactor. Consider the Parable of the Weeds:

Matthew 13:28-30 - "...The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'
"'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "

I could be way off (it's getting late), but this sounds a little like natural selection to me.

Understanding, and Being Understood

For a while I have really wrestled with feelings like, "Why don't people understand me?" "Am I the only one that sees these things?" "Am I going crazy?" These thoughts have been quite a source of anxiety. Recently though, I think that I have come to a change of heart regarding this issue. I realized something — people that do not understand me are not my responsibility. In other words, I should not take it personally if someone either does not understand me, and gives up trying to understand me. At first glance this may sound arrogant. And, I'm willing to consider that possibility. Here is my take on it, though.

I consider it my responsibility to do everything in my power to love people, which entails understanding them, serving them, and doing my best to grow in my capacity to do so. If I do not understand someone, it is my responsibility and burden to put forth the effort to understand that person. After all, it was Jesus who extended himself from heaven all the way to earth, all the way to death, even death on a cross, to "understand" me, to reach me. Therefore in imitation of Christ, it is my responsibility to understand others. Of course, it is also my right to decide to give up trying to understand a person, although at that point I believe I would not be imitating Christ's example. On the other hand, if a person does not understand me, I can only do my best to explain my heart and my motivation. If after that he/she still does not understand me, and ceases the pursuit of understanding me, then that is not my problem. It is tempting in such situations to feel that somehow I am to blame, I am off the map, I am crazy. And I think much of my anxiety has been tied to this idea. But this simply is not my responsibility.

A parallel idea is that of being romantically interested in someone. Imagine that I begin to have feelings for someone — believable enough, no? Now, imagine that girl finds out, but the feelings are not reciprocated (too believable, unfortunately). Now, the temptation is to feel insecure, inadequate, less than a man, not good enough, worthless, and any other diminutive adjective you can think of. But, why should I feel this way? It is not my job to get people to like/love me. As Lisa Nichols said during teen camp, "What others think of me, is not my business." All that I can do is be myself. If a person chooses not to love/understand me for who I am, it is his/her loss.

This is all wonderful theory, of course. It is certainly more difficult to actually think this way and act accordingly.

Faith

One of the things that I've been thinking about is the concept of faith. I postulate that faith is something that really everyone possesses, and not just those who profess to have it. If you were to try to limit the decisions of your life to only those things which can be experimentally proven, you would simply not be able to make any progress at all.

Levy's Going-Away Party

Sarah, Lynn, Levy, Shannon

It's sad to see Levy go but of course we wish him the best in his pursuit of his education in film in LA! When I heard it was going to be at Dave & Busters I thought cool, I'll be able to use up my four power cards. Unfortunately, the place was incredibly busy and incredibly slow — we waited probably two hours for a table. By the end of it I was slurring my words and drunk with sleepiness so I didn't get to use my cards. One highlight of the night was when I asked Sarah what her favorite video game was and she said, "Pac-woman. I got to level four once." I said, "You mean, Ms. Pacman?" I practically fell over laughing. It doesn't look so funny reading that but I guess you had to be there.

Levy enumerates his issues with Michelle

Saturday night James and I headed up to LA to hang out with Ben and another brother named Richard for a quadruple date. We had a lot of fun at sushi and miniature golf; my date was Alena from Armenia. I learned all sorts of interesting Armenian facts too, like the fact that Armenia was the first Christian nation. Caroline was James' date; it was really cool seeing her. Plus she was the only one I beat in miniature golf. I kept hitting the ball too hard.

Ivy and Lynn

Today Jared did the communion and Jee preached the sermon at church; both of them did really great jobs. In fact I think I'll email them tomorrow. The song service went really well too, I thought; there just seemed to be a certain youthful energy today. Maybe because the average age of everyone speaking was a bit younger this time.

It was a really nice day all around actually; I had lunch with Michelle (score one—err, two more, Michelle) and Lynn at Ruby's, then raced to see the Bourne Supremacy with Nikki. I really liked it, probably more than the first one. It was a good thing that Russ warned me it was really shaky camera work though; I think it would have been really distracting had I not known beforehand. Then tonight the household got together for a prayer night and ended up discussing some deep stuff — things like neediness, pride, hard times. Good stuff. But now it's late and I won't get to practice my guitar; oh well, maybe tomorrow.