There are a couple things that I would like to do with my life.
1) Be a well-known performing and recording artist.
2) Own a shop of some sort.

The first item usually seems impossible to me, but I have a God who is completely capable of the impossible. The second item will probably be something involving food. I like food, and I like working with food, and most of my jobs have been with food.

I am not exactly sure where a bachelor’s degree from Penn State is going to be used in my life. Sometimes it seems I’m working towards something I won’t really need. It’s funny though — I know that Penn State is exactly where God wants me right now. I’m just not sure why.

Zues, Josh and I had a little party this evening. Since conference hasn’t officially started, there are technically no rules .

and with all your soul
This means your life. We have been created with a life that can choose to seek God, His salvation, and His ways. We need to entrust the path of our physical life to Him, and truly love Him through our life by obeying His commands.

and with all your mind.
This means your thoughts. Sometimes wrong thoughts occur to us spontaneously, and we can not do anything about that. But we can choose to continue pursuing that thought or dismiss it from our mind. We need to make sure that our thoughts are pure and glorifying to God.

–Matthew 22:37

Italian ice lovers think it’s a big deal. For 16 years, Rita’s Ice has been serving up free cups of its delicious treat on the first day of Spring. Any flavor you want. All day long.

I remember the first year I tried Rita’s on the first day of Spring. It was the first time I’d ever tried the stuff, and what a better way to sample than get a free cup on a warm sunny day. Now I go every year, and this year I shivered in the wind 15 minutes for a frozen cup of Birthday Cake-flavored ice. Yeah, it’s that good.

What I admire about Rita’s is their willingness to give. Sure, it’s a way to attract new customers (it worked on me), but they have to be losing money on this thing. But the Rita’s giveaway accomplishes more than just boosting future sales. It bonds people together. Groups of people come out of the woodwork just to get a free ice, no matter how warm or cold it is that day. You’re in line for 15 minutes or more, and everyone is having a good time because they’re getting a free treat. People mingle, and aren’t afraid to joke around with others they’ve never seen before.

What is so striking about this event is that to me it seems so natural. Spring is welcomed by chirping birds, grass starting to turn green, leaves budding, animals scurrying around, and now by humans eating flavored ice. It just fits.

Way to go, Rita’s. Greeting the warm weather with 10 million ounces of ice. Brilliant!

“engaging interviews, whimsical blogging, and overall tasty cultural something, something, something.”

So far they’ve got their first issue of interviews up, and the blogging is continuous.

The site is primarily operated by Tim Willard, a friend of one of my friends. He’s got a heart for God, and has quite a way with words. I look forward to keeping up with this one in my RSS reader. Check it out!

Trap Door Sun

A long time ago, a certain girl wanted to look especially spectacular on her wedding day. She found a special bottle of perfume, made from very rare flowers. The perfume was the most pleasing aroma that she’d ever experienced. This perfume was very expensive, and so she saved up her money for a whole year to purchase the perfume.

Finally, she bought the perfume. She cherished that perfume, and locked it away for safekeeping. Every time she thought of the perfume, she would smile and think of her future husband. She knew that he would love her scent on their wedding day.

As the girl grew up, her innocence was lost and she forgot about that future husband. She sold her body to pay her rent and put food on her table. The perfume remained locked away, but it was never forgotten by the young woman. It was her most precious possession.

Eventually the girl’s profession was discovered, and she was to be publicly executed for her crime. But a Man stepped in just as she was about to be executed. He challenged the executioners: let the man who has never done wrong be the first to harm her. One by one, people trickled away.

The girl was overwhelmed with gratitude toward the Man. He revealed to her that He was the Savior of all men, and to place her trust in Him.

Here’s the cool part: she did. The girl’s name was Mary, and she became one of Jesus’ followers. She realized that He was King, and she worshipped Him by emptying the bottle of her expensive perfume on His feet. Talk about worship! She gave her most precious possession to her Lord. And yet, she probably felt that her bottle of perfume was so little compared what He had done for her.

Today, the average salary is $40,000-50,000. Mary poured out a $50,000 bottle of perfume onto her Savior’s feet. But more than that, she gave up something she had saved for her husband–something very close to her heart.

Mary gave of her possessions and of her heart, because her Savior is worthy of all worship.

What do you give Him?

The entertainment for the evening was a variety of performances from regular Chat Room attendees. Jachin Wilson played guitar solo, Steven Palermo played guitar and sung, and Carina Botterbusch played the piano and sung as well. We had a few solo acts by Jess Ilko and Kaira Rosario, and I ended the night by playing a few songs.

This month we served espresso drinks again. We appreciated the donation of wings and 70 cupcakes by my good friend Brian Ford and his wife Kim. The Chat Room had suffered in advertisement and donations, but seems to be getting a second wind. I hope momentum picks up and enthusiasm is in the air at future Chat Rooms! Stay tuned for upcoming entertainment.

The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and get lost.”

God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this, let’s say we have a man making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “OK, great!”

But God added, “Now, we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.”

The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.

God just looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!”

Heard these statements before? These are all beliefs that permeate our institutions and the culture that we live in. Chances are you’ve heard someone say or allude to more than one of these ideas. Maybe even in your Bible-believing church.

You might be surprised to learn that all of these statements are part of a single belief system. It is known as postmodernism and is the prevailing worldview in our culture today. It is not a religion, but rather a set of accepted beliefs.

One postmodernistic buzzword floating around is tolerance. At first glimpse, tolerance might sound like a great plan for us to all get along and love people of other beliefs. It would be, if we follow the traditional definition for tolerance: love the sinner, but not his sin. However, postmodernist tolerance demands that we ignore sin altogether: love each individual and accept his personal moral standards. That definition presupposes that each person is right in his beliefs, religion, and morals. But that is NOT what the Bible teaches.

“Jesus answered: ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”

–John 14:6

The statements at the beginning of this entry are postmodernistic, and postmodernism does not cooperate with Biblical Christianity. It is impossible to believe a postmodern doctrine and follow the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not tolerate other gods (Deut. 4:24), He is real and absolute (John 1:1), and He is the ONLY Way (John 14:6).

We started off talking about indie music and how it has developed. He is writing a paper on the indie movement regarding its roots, disposition, and complexion. He was interested in gaining another perspective to add to his paper.

We had some interesting issues come about in our discussion. We decided that indie music (created by independent, unsigned artists) is more realistic than commercial music (mainstream; created by signed musicians with a particular interest in finance). We agree that indie music is better if it is done right.

However, we had two didactic perspectives on the relationship between performer and audience. Ben thought that indie artists can form a stronger bond with their audience since the social distance between the them is much smaller. He claims that a mainstream artist is much more removed from their audience than a local indie artist. I brought up the converse, where mainstream artists have a much stronger connection (granted, superficially) to their audience at large. I claim that, for instance, a fan of Switchfoot may know more about Jon Foreman than a fan of NoRedTape may know about Ben (I define fan as a one-sided relationship) and thus would have a “closer” relationship to a mainstream artist. Arguments can really be made for both sides.

We also talked of the “lo-fi” quality of indie artists. There is something so pristine about a mainstream production that in essence makes the recording “too perfect.” An indie band generally falls short of that, and creates a sound that seems more genuine.

This raises an interesting question of reality. In life, things are generally not perfect. Bi-sect a tree vertically: will you find branches sprouting at the same height on each side? will there be an equal number of leaves on each side? will birds of the same type choose to make equally-sized nests on both sides, equidistant from the trunk? No, and if all that were true, the tree would look artificial. This is why art or music can be seen as “too perfect” and therefore unrealistic.

I think I went way off the deep end. Today I drank a red-eye and it’s really affecting me.