Another weekend

The car is still in Buckeye, AZ. Someday soon I plan on knowing what's going on with it.

I am pretty sure I'd rather be asleep today. I just think that today should go back to where it came from and leave me be. That's all I got for anybody.

Lates.

CentraCal

This just in, I hate Sacramento. Maybe not hate. Oh wait, yes I do. I just spent the past 72 hours on a whirlwind tour of Sacramento and Fresno and I might be fighting the whole area. It's flat, boring, and large cities are focused around industrial complexes. Maybe just Bakersfield on that last part, but seriously, why do people live in the places they do up there? Giant houses less than 20 yards from freeways, giant houses 6 feet apart, small houses in the middle of fields, etc, etc, etc.

Forgive me Central California, for I harbor ill will towards you. If only you were more like Oregon, or San Francisco, or LA, maybe people would like you more. Not just for your cheap housing and general proximity to nicer places, but for you, in all of your farming glory and flat land. I worry for you CentraCal, because I don't think you know the difference. I think you're so consumed with making friends you don't realize they don't really like you, they just like that you get them closer to the really cool cities.

It's just something to think about. Maybe you should get a real sports team or some technological center or some mountains or something. Then you would be liked for your possessions at least and not your placement in the social structure. Just a thought.

God is a woman

So we're sitting in class right now and have spent 2 hours talking about the gender of God. And here's what it boils down to: male and female are human terms describing gender. According to Deuteronomy 4:15, God cannot be duplicated in image, including male or female. So the Bible speaks in metaphor when describing God as a Father or a Son, just as it does when it says Jesus is a Lamb.

That's my class. Seriously requiring all my mental capacity.

Fidel in the army get-up

The title comes from some friends in high school. They saw a guy named Fidel wearing some camo or something and said, "And there's Fidel in the army get-up." They thought it was very funny. I didn't, but I did like the phrase. It's one of those things that's funnier out of context.

We went to a show last night. Chris Seals and his band Crescent Drive played at a bar in Whittier. They really have a good sound and it was nice to get away from the Azusa/Glendora sphere of influence. There's a lot of drama going on with most of my friends right now. Everybody either is self-medicating, falling in love, falling out of love, or finding that they aren't exactly what they want to be. It's very interesting to see, but only because it's not me. I know there is purpose behind it, and Wayne says they're going through it because victory is near. Victory to me means something different than it does to him, so I let it slide.

I am supposed to be working on a bibliography for my theology class. I don't have a topic yet so that's a hard thing to do. So I pray about it and hope that before tomorrow night something piques my interest. We'll see. It should be easy to find a topic about God and mankind that I could write about, but I want to get a lot out of it, and that means it must mean a lot to me before I can invest myself, and I don't know what about God I want to know more about. Uggh. Faith is complicated if I let it be.

Time to make the donuts. Secrest out.

Franz and the others

Tonight was a good night. I think that tonight, for the first time, I've enjoyed the company of someone. Which is entirely odd because I've been around a good many people, but tonight it was just like I was enjoying God in my presence and someone else, too. It's weird and I don't know if I can put it into words but here goes:

I'm sitting on the couch reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. It's an incredible book that details this guy's journey with Christianity. I really like the way he writes, super easy to read. Anyway, so I'm sitting there reading and I feel like I should be getting up and getting some music together and going outside to talk to God. But I don't. Danielle is sitting on the other couch, just doing homework and the Franz Ferdinand CD is playing. I just sit there and keep on reading.

I'm usually such a private person that any spiritual experience I have I like to go figure it out and work it out vocally by myself. I really enjoy being alone and talking with God about my thoughts. Not a lot of people on this planet understand them or care, for that matter. But God really does. And that is pretty rad. And the best way I know how to talk to him is alone while I'm listening to music. Or not, sometimes. The point is, I really enjoy my alone time because I can withdraw.

But tonight, I really enjoyed just sitting there reading. The concepts in the book were things that normally would have caused me to jump up and run away from people, but tonight I just sat there, listening to Franz and looking at my wife read her thick nursing book. It was incredible. I just felt that God was there, somehow, just enjoying us, too.

Maybe that's how he operates. When we do things that bring us joy, he wants nothing more than for us to see that it was him who allowed for the moment to happen. And for that, I'm grateful to him. Because tonight was really cool. Thank you God, for letting me listen to music and read about faith and sit with my wife and God. You make good times. Good times. Love you, bye.