Coming Down

I'm coming down from a long week. It started last week as I worked, for money, for the first time in many months. It felt good. I basically made coffee for 4 days for the Story Workshop at school, but I gained a lot of pleasure in making coffee...something to do with mindlessness, and being out of the house, and making a little money. But, I sat in on the final few hours of the workshop which was the most heartbreaking and the most rejuvenating experience. I sat and listened to the attendees share their stories, their past stories of harm, as well as their current stories of feeling hope. It was a great reminder of why I am at this school. It is graduate work, but it is a whole lot of heart work too, and it is beautiful. For anyone who is interested in experiencing Mars Hill Graduate School but doesn't want to be a student, I highly recommend this workshop.

Then I sat in on Philosophy for 4 full days. I have zero experience with philosophy, and those four days didn't improve my knowledge much. Hopefully working on the final paper will help it all come together. But we had an entertaining professor, Carl Raschke, who has a knack for saying and doing some crazy things. I thought I would share a few of the moments that snapped me out of my lecture stupor...

Theology is the shotgun marriage between Plato and Paul.

What makes us Christian is that we have a God that actually pooped.

One of the best ways to shake up a church is to read scripture.

And for those who like to stay up to date on Postmodernism, apparently...
Derrida is out. Spinoza is in.
You can take that information to the bank...or at least wikipedia!

Happy weekend!

Plato

He says about unity that "by diverging, it agrees with itself...like the harmony of a bow or a lyre." ...Harmony is concord, and concord is a kind of agreement; but agreement cannot be created from divergent things while they are still divergent, and harmony cannot be created unless divergent things agree.

The Symposium

Hate

It is amazing to see, as I plumb the depths of my hate, how much of life appears to be a complete facade - a play with well constructed scripts and costumes, perfectly practiced gestures and facial expressions. People will say, "You don't hate yourself-you look so put together," "you're not a racist-you're so nice to people," "you aren't playing a part-you are so honest." I think today is the first time in the past year at MHGS that I have truly believed in the complete and utter depravity of mankind.

Today, I see no good in the world and I find no hope in God - the apparent mastermind of this mess. And yet today, I went to church where they are celebrating a year of hope, and it felt so good. But now I sit here, trapped in my little room in the enormous world too afraid to step out and fuck it up all the more by my mere hateful presence, and too scared to stay in here all alone murdering myself.

The Fourth on Franklin

Happy Independence Day!

We inaugurated our new home last night with our first party for the fourth of July. Our Eastlake neighborhood basically shuts down as we are just blocks away from Lake Union where there is a fireworks show. The night started with just hanging in our front yard watching our new neighbors having water balloon fights. These soon turned into throwing water balloons at cars driving by.



Most of the drivers laughed it off, but someone got pissed and called the bike cops, which left the lingering question...how do you call a bike cop? Anyway, Rachel was on top of it - eaves dropping and filling us in. She actually heard the bike cop say, "help me help you!"





Then we headed down to the Lake to watch the fireworks. Hope everyone had a good holiday!