This is a post about nothing and everything. "State of the Sisson" address, I suppose. Read at your own risk.
This seems like a long time as i write this, yet at the same tim i remember two years ago when I thought 18 months was a long time at Verity. The difference between now and then is content expectation. Verity was a countdown of 18 months till i was DONE with something. Now I am in a countdown till I can BEGIN something. Verity time was filled with school, people and activity, but these next seven and a half months have no clear defining points, which makes the wait see much more daunting.
That is not to say there aren't things I need and want to do with the time I have left. There are alot of things that I want to do, and I have to work in the mean time. I've mentioned lists of things I'd like to do before: Learn Hebrew, write more, learn to dance, shoot more. In this list I am making progress on various parts. I dance once a week with the State Swing Society, and and getting better slowly. I have been writing more, though not a whole lot. I hopefully will be going to a shooting club on wednesdays. I would like to take up skating on sunday afternoons again, aswell.
Those are just the time occupying ones. There are also things as far as self improvement that I feel I need to do before I ship out. Discipline is a big one. I liked at school, knowing when I had to be up and in bed and to chapel and classes. I like structure, but structure is not something I seem to be able to maintain on my own. When I am the enforcer of my schedule, I fail. Yes I make it to work and meetings and events on time, because such things are not dependent or or structured around me. I structure around them.
Even outside of structure I have a hard time doing things I want to do. Reading my bible is a practice that is irregular at best. I work out hardly enough, considering the standards I need to meet before I leave. Anyone who knows me knows that my diet is important to me, yet again (as with daily disciplines) when i am responsible for feeding myself and arranging my meals, health becomes much less important. I'm in decent shape, and I knwo theology well enough to be an annoyance to friends who don't understand its importance. The fact is that i want to get better ad reading, working out and eating properly, but I can't.
In Highschool and before I had regular friends. Jordan Mears, Matt Lottes, and Trey & Tison back when I was 7-8. These were all guys who were close enough to me geographically that we would end up seeing each other most days. I've always been known to my family to be a social person, and those friendships were the necessary extension of that character trait. But now I find myself in an interesting social situation. I don;t have many close friends. That is to say that after School and Israel, I found that most of my friends live out of state. This obviously precludes the idea of proximity friendship I had before. I don't know anyone i can just DO things with. I am thankful for the Gaddies; Jed, Nikki and Vikki, who have introduced me to the dace club and let me tag along to moves and such. But they have their own lives, and seeing as they are, in majority, women, not people who I can just call and say "Hey, lets go do-"
The reason I find it hard to do more dancing and skating and shooting and even learning hebrew is that I'm doing it alone. Every one of those things I got into because someone introduced me to them. I have also written before about the reason for my social nature: I see beauty and enjoy life vicariously. I like to dance with people who like to dance. I like to skate because the people I am with make it joyful. It would be the most amazing thing to learn a new language WITH someone.
Yet, I am leaving. Were I to leave right now, There isn't much in Mid-Michigan Id miss, think about, or worry about aside from my parents (and even they agree that it is past time for me to separate). There are other people, in other parts of the country i would think about and wonder and maybe even worry about, but I can't or don't really talk to them anyways. I can say there are a few people I'd try to keep in contact with VIA FB (but this is hard for me, as, again, I prefer (even need) face to face interaction to really experience a person, FB friendships are unfulfilling).
I watched the documentary series "Carrier", which followed the USS Nimitz on a 6 month cruise. It made me want to leave sooner. Yet, at the same time, seeing life aboard a boat and the relationships and social life, I desired one thing more. I desired attachment. This is nothing new. I would love to leave part of myself behind with someone, to know they were waiting, and who I could live for while away. The first few months of school i skated and worked out and wrote for Laura. When that faded, those habits faded.
But do i really want to attach, or even have friends just long enough to leave them? I don't see myself coming back to this area to live for any length of time. And surely I'd find friends in the Navy, as I'd have that interpersonal proximity that was the foundation for my old friendships. Would it be fair to them? Would it be fair to me?
And for all the things I wish I could do, all the people I wish I could "hang out" with, my life is not conducive to such things. My scedule after the first of the year is such: Sunday I go to church and Skate, Monday I work, Tuesday I Have DEP Ed Meetings, then I dance; Wednesday are DEP meetings and shooting; Thursday I work, Friday and saturday I either work or study at home. Do I have time? No. Am i generally easy to befriend? No.
So what is the point? I have a lot i need to figure out before I leave. Rather, I have a lot I don't know. This is all stuff that I really can't do too much about. I don't think that anyone would really say their life is any clearer than mine. No one knows what will happen in the next 225 days. That's ok. I can (and sometimes do) stress about it, and subsequently am loosing my hair.
If nothing else, in Seven months I will look back and know that I am alone and unfulfilled now because G-d wanted me to be, and at that time, whether any of this has changed or not, I will be then what G-d will want me to be.
Trusting in G-d is not easy.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
To those people who would say "Hey, well all the religions are the same,
…all roads lead to G-d anyway,”
What about the diferences?
“Well its all about love.”
Islam is not about love, it’s about submission. (and blowing up kids)
Christianity is not about love, it’s about reconciliation.
Buddhism is not about love, but escaping suffering.
Hinduism is not about love, but escaping the illusion of the world.
Love may be significant in each, but it is not the central message of each.
Why think a modest similarity is more important than the massive differences.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Growing in Thirds
I went dancing tonite for the third time with the State Swing Society. The first time I went, in costume, I was stiff. I left early cause I couldnt ask anyone to dance and couldnt make myself dance unless I knew that I knew how to do ti right. I couldin't relax, so I couldn't enjoy it.
Seven years. Seven years is about one third of my life now. I look back at that interval. Fourteen years ago I was seven years old. I don't remember anything from before then. Not a thing. At all. I remember a cake for my eight birthday. I think thats My earliest memory that I can recall without the aid of pictures to show me.
I remember Blake Chappel, who I considered my best friend. I remember feeling so dumb compared to him, but I was eight, and I didn't care. I was a Dumb kid. I used to feel ashamed of my childhood, not because I was a terrible child (though i might have been) but because i saw how really dumb I was. But at the time I thought I was dumb, and I didn't care. I knew when I was seven that I didn't know some of the things the other kids did. And I LOVED it. I was the weird, crazy, talkative, off the wall kid. I lived in my imagination.
Seven years ago I was fourteen. I'm not sure what happened this year, but things changed. I changed. I started that process of growing up. Maybe it was SSI, maybe it was changed in my family life, maybe it was something else, but for sure it was G-d in HIS sovereignty, shaping me into who he wanted me to be. However, whenever, why ever, that year my brain caught up. If there is any intelligence, any logic, any skill in me as far as thinking goes, it becan to develop when I was fourteen. I Corinthians 13:11 "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, argued like a child; now that I have become a man, I have finished childish ways." That verse fit me.
But with this most recent third of my life, I was an adult. Yes i made mistakes before, but they were the mistakes of a child: breaking two of moms china bowl in less than five minutes because I set them in the same place on the counter; bashing my head against a mailbox post cause I wasn't looking where I was going. As an adult, the mistakes you make are more subtle, but much bigger.
With my ability to think I slowly lost my childhood. That is obvious if you think about it. I no longer was content with being dumber, even if it meant I was no longer care-free. In fact I became quite the opposite of care free; you could say I became care-intensive. From fifteen to seventeen I became depressive because i over-thought everything. yet still had my childhood selfishness. Everything was about me, and when you think as much as I did, everything becomes bad.
By the time I got to my first job at sixteen, i was known by the people at work as "the guy who killed his inner child". No more naivete, which was good, no more dumbness, which was good, But also no more joy. No more carefree willing ness to accept life. I thought i was still that child, but I had become a hardened adult.
Through events In my life after high-school my heart was thawed and refrozen and thawed again as people came and went from my life. Now here I am, looking back on twenty-one years. I was Toad, then Nate, now Nathan.
I've swung through two extremes. I look back on the fourteen year old kid. Nate. He was so full of life. I sometimes think I dont experience half of what he did as I see the world. Sure, I've been more places, done more things, but there is a lot i haven't really SEEN.
As I danced tonite, the third time with this group, I was told i was too stiff. I was. I am. But I let go. For a while there, dancing with Vikki and Monica and the other girls who's names i have forgotten (yeah, that sounds good), I was able to dance. It may not seem like it to any reader, but for me it was big. I didn't have to know how to do the moves. I did them. I even kept time, but I wasn't trying to. I did part of a Martial Arts Kata to a song. I lookd so stupid, but I didn't care. I was fourteen again.
No, I'm not Nate, the carefree fourteen year old. I have harder eyes, a stronger body, and a more discerning heart. But for a few hours, to the right music, with the right people, I could dance.
I don't need angels to talk to me, to speak in a forgien toung that I don't really know, or get slain in the spirit. I can dance. I can close my eyes and say to G-d, "I'm a kid again. Look, G-d, I can dance. You made me to do this. You made me to see the world through hard eyes and thoughtful discernment, but you also made me a carefree kid. And that kid, who you made, is dancing."
I miss that kid i was sometimes. I miss being carefree and loose and lost in the world. But I like who I am, the conglomeration of that dumb kid, that selfish teen, and now this adult. I like who G-d made me.
If that makes any sense.
Seven years. Seven years is about one third of my life now. I look back at that interval. Fourteen years ago I was seven years old. I don't remember anything from before then. Not a thing. At all. I remember a cake for my eight birthday. I think thats My earliest memory that I can recall without the aid of pictures to show me.
I remember Blake Chappel, who I considered my best friend. I remember feeling so dumb compared to him, but I was eight, and I didn't care. I was a Dumb kid. I used to feel ashamed of my childhood, not because I was a terrible child (though i might have been) but because i saw how really dumb I was. But at the time I thought I was dumb, and I didn't care. I knew when I was seven that I didn't know some of the things the other kids did. And I LOVED it. I was the weird, crazy, talkative, off the wall kid. I lived in my imagination.
Seven years ago I was fourteen. I'm not sure what happened this year, but things changed. I changed. I started that process of growing up. Maybe it was SSI, maybe it was changed in my family life, maybe it was something else, but for sure it was G-d in HIS sovereignty, shaping me into who he wanted me to be. However, whenever, why ever, that year my brain caught up. If there is any intelligence, any logic, any skill in me as far as thinking goes, it becan to develop when I was fourteen. I Corinthians 13:11 "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, argued like a child; now that I have become a man, I have finished childish ways." That verse fit me.
But with this most recent third of my life, I was an adult. Yes i made mistakes before, but they were the mistakes of a child: breaking two of moms china bowl in less than five minutes because I set them in the same place on the counter; bashing my head against a mailbox post cause I wasn't looking where I was going. As an adult, the mistakes you make are more subtle, but much bigger.
With my ability to think I slowly lost my childhood. That is obvious if you think about it. I no longer was content with being dumber, even if it meant I was no longer care-free. In fact I became quite the opposite of care free; you could say I became care-intensive. From fifteen to seventeen I became depressive because i over-thought everything. yet still had my childhood selfishness. Everything was about me, and when you think as much as I did, everything becomes bad.
By the time I got to my first job at sixteen, i was known by the people at work as "the guy who killed his inner child". No more naivete, which was good, no more dumbness, which was good, But also no more joy. No more carefree willing ness to accept life. I thought i was still that child, but I had become a hardened adult.
Through events In my life after high-school my heart was thawed and refrozen and thawed again as people came and went from my life. Now here I am, looking back on twenty-one years. I was Toad, then Nate, now Nathan.
I've swung through two extremes. I look back on the fourteen year old kid. Nate. He was so full of life. I sometimes think I dont experience half of what he did as I see the world. Sure, I've been more places, done more things, but there is a lot i haven't really SEEN.
As I danced tonite, the third time with this group, I was told i was too stiff. I was. I am. But I let go. For a while there, dancing with Vikki and Monica and the other girls who's names i have forgotten (yeah, that sounds good), I was able to dance. It may not seem like it to any reader, but for me it was big. I didn't have to know how to do the moves. I did them. I even kept time, but I wasn't trying to. I did part of a Martial Arts Kata to a song. I lookd so stupid, but I didn't care. I was fourteen again.
No, I'm not Nate, the carefree fourteen year old. I have harder eyes, a stronger body, and a more discerning heart. But for a few hours, to the right music, with the right people, I could dance.
I don't need angels to talk to me, to speak in a forgien toung that I don't really know, or get slain in the spirit. I can dance. I can close my eyes and say to G-d, "I'm a kid again. Look, G-d, I can dance. You made me to do this. You made me to see the world through hard eyes and thoughtful discernment, but you also made me a carefree kid. And that kid, who you made, is dancing."
I miss that kid i was sometimes. I miss being carefree and loose and lost in the world. But I like who I am, the conglomeration of that dumb kid, that selfish teen, and now this adult. I like who G-d made me.
If that makes any sense.
The Book that gives hope. (Why I'm not a charismatic theologian)
“The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.” Where do you go to find joy? Where do you go to find happiness? Where do you go to find relief from sorrow, relief from depression, relief from anxiety? Where do you go? The Psalmist says, the voice of God says, “Go to the Word.”
We’re not left without principles for life. People say, “Doctrine doesn’t matter.” Oh it matters. What does it mean to have a Bible and not understand its principles? You don’t want to wander around in a fog of human opinion. You have a true Word to follow.
And what is the product of this if you go on the right path? Rejoicing the heart. True joy, true joy. My joy comes from what I know to be true about God and His purposes. John writes, 1 John 1:4, “I write these things unto you that your joy may be full.”
I don’t need voices from heaven. I don’t need miracles. I don’t need to talk to angels. I don’t need supernatural experiences, neither do you. We don’t need visions. I don’t need to have some kind of vision to boost up my faltering faith. I know from the Word of God what is true, I know the path of truth in which I walk and in that path of truth I find my heart rejoices. Depression, anxiety, fear, doubt comes from not knowing, not believing, not trusting the truth revealed in Scripture.
(John MacArthur, "God's own defense of scripture")
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Snow adventures Vol. 1
So today coming out of work after our first snow of the season, my car was iced over. I didn't have a scraper in my car.
I worked on Halloween and we were allowed to dress up. I donned my pirate costume for the second time. As I work at a family atmosphere grocery store I was hesitant to wear my metal sword and knife, but brought them anyways, just in case i would be allowed. After work that night I was bringing my costume parts in, but accidentally dropped my 8" fixed blade dagger under my carseat, and so it was not brought in.
As I searched for my ice scraper, lo and behold i discover my knife! Having no proper scraper, and being the knife-nerd I am, what do you think I did?
My knife worked wonderfully as a scraper, and I am sorely tempted to keep it in my car until I can find my proper scraper. What do you think; Mideval knife as a Ice Scraper: Genius or Idiocy?
I worked on Halloween and we were allowed to dress up. I donned my pirate costume for the second time. As I work at a family atmosphere grocery store I was hesitant to wear my metal sword and knife, but brought them anyways, just in case i would be allowed. After work that night I was bringing my costume parts in, but accidentally dropped my 8" fixed blade dagger under my carseat, and so it was not brought in.
As I searched for my ice scraper, lo and behold i discover my knife! Having no proper scraper, and being the knife-nerd I am, what do you think I did?
My knife worked wonderfully as a scraper, and I am sorely tempted to keep it in my car until I can find my proper scraper. What do you think; Mideval knife as a Ice Scraper: Genius or Idiocy?
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Characteristics of Hyper-fundamentalists
First, hyper-fundamentalists often understand fundamentalism in terms of loyalty to an organization (IBLP), movement, or even leader (Bill Gothard). They equate the defense of the faith with the prosperity of their organization or its leader. Someone who criticizes or contradicts it is subjected to censure or separation.
Second, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes adopt a adamant stance regarding some extrabiblical or even antibiblical teaching. [Seven steps to prosperity, courtship, girls wearing only skirts. etc.] …When individuals become adamant over such nonbiblical teachings, they cross the line into hyper-fundamentalism.
Third, hyper-fundamentlists understand separation in terms of guilt by association. To associate with someone who holds any error constitutes an endorsement of that error.
Fourth, hyper-fundamentalists are marked by an inability to receive criticism. For them, questioning implies weakness or compromise. Any criticism — especially if it is offered publicly — constitutes an attack. (Young people being sent away or outcasted for thinking and disagreeing with an extra-biblical stance)
A fifth characteristic of hyper-fundamentalism is anti-intellectualism. Some hyper-fundamentalists view education as detrimental to spiritual well-being…. Colleges, when they exist, are strictly for the purpose of practical training, or must be controlled by the standards of the leader or organization. (Verity)
Sixth, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes turn nonessentials into tests of fundamentalism. For example, some hyper-fundamentalists assume that only Baptists should be recognized as fundamentalists…. One’s fundamentalist standing may be judged by such criteria as hair length, musical preferences, and whether one allows women to wear trousers.
Seventh, hyper-fundamentalists occasionally treat militant political involvement as a criterion for fundamentalist standing. During the 1960s and 1970s, anticommunism was a definitive factor for some fundamentalists. Its place has now been taken by antiabortion and antihomosexual activism. Most fundamentalists do agree about these issues, but hyper-fundamentalists make militant activism a necessary obligation of the Christian faith.
Eight and last, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes hold a double standard for personal ethics. They see themselves engaged in an ecclesiastical war, and they reason that some things are permissible in a warfare that would not be permissible in ordinary life. They may employ name-calling, half-truths, and innuendo as legitimate weapons. They may excuse broken promises and political backstabbing.
Hyper-fundamentalism is the modern equivalent of pharisaical spiritualism. Most tenants of Hyper-fundamental teaching are good thoughts or ideas that are blown far out of proportion. These rules, laws and methods of living are not bad in and of themselves; the problem though is when the the theology behind them. Theology is everything. How a person (or organization) views G-d will define their Methodology (what that person or organization does and how they live). Hyper-fundamentalism, by its nature, misses the theology of the Gospel. We are saved by grace, not by any ammount of right living or works. Having standards is great, but we WILL fail those standards, and even if we do not, we are still damned outside of the sacrifice of Yeshua. Grace alone through faith alone.
Second, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes adopt a adamant stance regarding some extrabiblical or even antibiblical teaching. [Seven steps to prosperity, courtship, girls wearing only skirts. etc.] …When individuals become adamant over such nonbiblical teachings, they cross the line into hyper-fundamentalism.
Third, hyper-fundamentlists understand separation in terms of guilt by association. To associate with someone who holds any error constitutes an endorsement of that error.
Fourth, hyper-fundamentalists are marked by an inability to receive criticism. For them, questioning implies weakness or compromise. Any criticism — especially if it is offered publicly — constitutes an attack. (Young people being sent away or outcasted for thinking and disagreeing with an extra-biblical stance)
A fifth characteristic of hyper-fundamentalism is anti-intellectualism. Some hyper-fundamentalists view education as detrimental to spiritual well-being…. Colleges, when they exist, are strictly for the purpose of practical training, or must be controlled by the standards of the leader or organization. (Verity)
Sixth, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes turn nonessentials into tests of fundamentalism. For example, some hyper-fundamentalists assume that only Baptists should be recognized as fundamentalists…. One’s fundamentalist standing may be judged by such criteria as hair length, musical preferences, and whether one allows women to wear trousers.
Seventh, hyper-fundamentalists occasionally treat militant political involvement as a criterion for fundamentalist standing. During the 1960s and 1970s, anticommunism was a definitive factor for some fundamentalists. Its place has now been taken by antiabortion and antihomosexual activism. Most fundamentalists do agree about these issues, but hyper-fundamentalists make militant activism a necessary obligation of the Christian faith.
Eight and last, hyper-fundamentalists sometimes hold a double standard for personal ethics. They see themselves engaged in an ecclesiastical war, and they reason that some things are permissible in a warfare that would not be permissible in ordinary life. They may employ name-calling, half-truths, and innuendo as legitimate weapons. They may excuse broken promises and political backstabbing.
Hyper-fundamentalism is the modern equivalent of pharisaical spiritualism. Most tenants of Hyper-fundamental teaching are good thoughts or ideas that are blown far out of proportion. These rules, laws and methods of living are not bad in and of themselves; the problem though is when the the theology behind them. Theology is everything. How a person (or organization) views G-d will define their Methodology (what that person or organization does and how they live). Hyper-fundamentalism, by its nature, misses the theology of the Gospel. We are saved by grace, not by any ammount of right living or works. Having standards is great, but we WILL fail those standards, and even if we do not, we are still damned outside of the sacrifice of Yeshua. Grace alone through faith alone.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
21
This year has actually been a good year for me. So much has happened. I can acutally say that I'm not remotely where I thought Id be.
I started learning a new language.
I've been to Washington DC, on my own, paying for myself.
I met a girl named Jade and a Dragon named Ember.
I was named Aiden.
I've been to Israel, twice.
I've Graduated from College.
I've healed from a broken heart, and subsequently fallen in love again.
I enlisted in the United States Navy.
I have been led deeper in my relationship with G-d through the Holy Spirit (by study and theology, not by apostolic gifts or babbling in tongues)
My twentieth year has been the first year that I've really moved. It's been incredible, albeit emotional and hard, to walk forward. I've trusted (whether i meant to or not) in the Sovereignty of G-d; He has led me to this point, and by His will I stand here.
I could babble on about this, but the point is this: In spite of everything, this has been a good year, and I wouldn't change it.
I started learning a new language.
I've been to Washington DC, on my own, paying for myself.
I met a girl named Jade and a Dragon named Ember.
I was named Aiden.
I've been to Israel, twice.
I've Graduated from College.
I've healed from a broken heart, and subsequently fallen in love again.
I enlisted in the United States Navy.
I have been led deeper in my relationship with G-d through the Holy Spirit (by study and theology, not by apostolic gifts or babbling in tongues)
My twentieth year has been the first year that I've really moved. It's been incredible, albeit emotional and hard, to walk forward. I've trusted (whether i meant to or not) in the Sovereignty of G-d; He has led me to this point, and by His will I stand here.
I could babble on about this, but the point is this: In spite of everything, this has been a good year, and I wouldn't change it.
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