May 2012
4 posts
“When I began to look into [glory] I was shocked to find such different...”
– C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
God is who He is
People are done selling. And the public is tired of being sold.
It’d be really helpful if we could just start calling things what they are, rather than adding weight, burden, and panic to buyers who are tricked into things they don’t really want.
But I digress; can we agree that after a while, people see right through you if you falsify and elaborate your product? Your gains will be...
Church success
We are now in a world where a major company can slowly die by missing the launch of one key product into the market. They panic to play catch-up. They didn’t see the value, but the consumers have moved on. Innovation and creativity are taking the place of reliability and long-standing products in many industries.
Isn’t it ironic that a church’s success is actually based on...
Be free
God offers more freedom than anyone, any system, any government, or any idea ever has.
He loves you no matter what you’ve done.
Nobody offers you freedom like this! Your boss doesn’t sympathize with you or particularly like you when you fail to meet demands. You’ll hear if it wasn’t enough. You still need to pay back the bank first—they don’t care about your...
January 2012
3 posts
“If I have all faith,
so as to remove mountains,
but have not love,
I am...”
– 1 Corinthians 2:2
Praying with Isaiah
Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?”
[Isaiah 2:22]
I give so much weight to people and even to what is being said, built, done, and seen in culture.
Rarely do I stop in a day and consider the majesty of the Lord or what wondrous glory is his character. He has power and control over all nations and he alone has the authority to call everyone an...
“Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and...”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
August 2011
5 posts
“We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the...”
– C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
July 2011
9 posts
Desiring what the world can't give
Most people, if they have really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up...
1 tag
“If you demand respect
Fear is what you’ll get
You’ll never hear an...”
– The Reign of Kindo, “Bullets in the Air”
2 tags
The Valley of Vision
This is one of the coolest images I’ve heard in quite some time. quoted in Tullian’s book Unfashionable, Puritan Arthur Bennett describes how paradoxical the Christian perspective really ought to be. These timeless reminders (written in 1975) are put beautifully in his prayer:
Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to this valley of vision, where I live in the depths...
April 2010
5 posts
[twen-tee wuhn]
Today I turn 21; I do not enter the promised land, nor do I suddenly hold the keys to true masculinity. Today I turn 21; I am not finally free to live like a drunkard, nor do I begin to solve my problems, social inquiries, or relationship issues by way of a bottle. No, today I just turn 21.A friend texted me last night, “enjoy this weekend… you deserve it!” and I could not...
here it is, my short story from last quarter:...
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I should have just brought my regular camera....
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I have never experienced something quite like...
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I was inspired to write this morning. Easter...
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March 2010
9 posts
I can't get over how good this song sounds. to God...
I’ll Fly Away by E - Pop (6218 KB) Listen on posterous Posted via email from posts by mark | Comment »
Good quotes from professor Nigel in Finance day...
I can already tell I’m going to enjoy this class. Not only is the content interesting, but so is the commentary. A Singapore-raised Ph.D. student has funny insight and eloquent words, not to mention a sense of enthusiasm that livens an 8:30 class. Here are the lines that I jotted down just on day one. I have intentionally removed them from their context in order to increase the humor....
a taste of the Rav retreat 3/25-28:
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Marriage: in hindsight and foresight
It’s been a few days, but I cannot free my mind from the picture of marriage. I was given the privilege of taking part in the union of Justin and Allie Gillebo last Friday, and there are multiple things that stuck with me from this night (besides the pre-show Call of Duty, the Starbucks lattes, and the awesome toasts at the reception).The morning of the wedding, I was trying to prepare by...
John Piper: God's love for people and their glory...
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John Piper: God's love for people and their glory...
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ladies and gentleman: John Piper on God as a lover...
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NYC pastor JR Vassar preached at The Village in...
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I'm in a musical mood--this is good stuff:
Everything In Its Right Place by Radiohead (4256 KB) Listen on posterous Posted via email from posts by mark | Comment »
February 2010
6 posts
Why am I a Christian? read my conversation with an...
Religion can be a bad thing, and it generally is. Religion is usually a bunch of rules on people’s lives that 1) they do NOT follow, and they end up hating religion because it is “mean” and “restricting” or 2) people DO follow and rise up with pride in themselves that they followed all the rules and they make themselves great. Christianity is much less about...
Is there a better song on an overcast morning? ...
Wet The Day by The Album Leaf (5110 KB) Listen on posterous Posted via email from posts by mark | Comment »
a prayer from November
11.27.09 Father, I have not treated you as a good Dad. Reveal to me more each day where you are healing and I am failing. Use your Holy Spirit to teach, convict, inspire, and break me toward your deepest will, which stems from love of yourself and your desire for glory, the ultimate of all things. Lord, if I only leaned on you for confidence, I may not plug my ears and run like a young boy...
more words from C.S. Lewis' "The Weight of Glory";...
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or...
amazing Death Cab performance of "Brothers on a...
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words from C.S. Lewis' "The Weight of Glory" on...
“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of...
January 2010
9 posts
Mike Jameson
This kid thinks he got a phone call, during school where he thinks he walks tall But his cellular phone never rang at all; to the rest of the crowd, he was really small This kid thinks he got a letter, with his mom’s home address on the header It came in a package with a really tight sweater; it was his favorite color so he’s never felt better His grandma gets discounts at Claire’s; I’m...
according to Jesus, we are actually better off...
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'The Chandler Effect': one of my old posts from...
It’s about time I begin updating this more often. It’s not even for the external views, not to look any certain way to my social circles. No, it helps my memory. If I expose things on here, it helps me remember, it helps my mind stay focused, and it helps my experiences materialize into something tangible that I can come back to, rather than relying on my gradually worsening memory. And if...
music that is biblically sound and helps to focus...
Cielo by Phil Wickham (8981 KB) Listen on posterous Posted via email from posts by mark | Comment »
Tim Keller's Redeemer ministry in NYC extending to...
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the heavens declare the glory of God
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Spiritual Growth: a question we should all answer
“Are you filling your mind and filling your heart and filling your world with trinkety, weak, temporary garbage? Or are you feasting on eternal, weighty, thick things?” Posted via email from posts by mark | Comment »
this is my day-1 response to the question "why do...
There is a way to invent yourself without starting over. There is a need to recapture what is already seen with the human eyes, without a camera. And sometimes, there is a desire to create from nothing a new piece of fantasy in a world that’s real. Be they books to the masses, blogs to the friends and critics, journals to oneself, or sticky-notes that get lost in tin trash cans, pieces of...
day of winter quarter and here are some things I...
Thoughts from 1/04/10 in chronological order:1) MGMT prof miss Huwe has a Ph.D. and isn’t married. Coincidence? 2) During lunch, the girl next to me at the U-Bookstore Cafe was reading Chapter 1 of a Retail textbook… It’s noon of day one, love. Take a breather.3) I mentioned a guy that I met last quarter and someone in my new class came up and said they went to high school...