Lest we forget . . .

"Never ruin a good apology with an excuse."
~Author Unknown

College essays

500 words to express yourself and to demonstrate your goodness. Dont forget to mention how great you are. Be sure to include your personality. Tell it through a story that will make your boring essay more interesting. Also you might consider using analogies and metaphors to enhance your articulation and paint a picture for the reader. Don't mention your reader directly as you might offend them or accuse them without meaning to. Use fluent writing even if you are not capable of speaking so fluently. Be repetetive with motifs but not with words. Include yourself without being narcisistic. Include God but don't forget everything else. 500 words to live through. 5 minutes to impress someone with your life and express your need for college. One essay to move the reader. One shot to get in. . . and I think it is making me sick :(

By the moonlight

Move forward. Back. Side to side.
Our hearts, rhythmically collide.

Eye to eye. Hand to Hand.
Time drifts away like sand.

Step by step. Beat by beat.
Perfect smelling sweet.

Year by year. Line by line.
Through smiles, our love shines.

Once upon a time

Once upon a time there was a boy. This boy was no ordinary boy, no, he was different. This boy had two moms and two dads. He loved to play and run around. He ran for as long and as hard as he could until he couldn't run anymore. When he couldn't run any longer he would fall asleep. He slept deeply and with wild dreams of riding horses and saving cities and other heroic deeds. Then he would wake up and run. He ran for as long and as hard as he could until he couldn't run anymore. When he couldn't run any longer he would fall asleep. Then he would wake up.

Wasn't it amazing when we used to run around pretending we were people? Pretending that we had things to worry about and pretending we had monsters to fight. When did it all become so real?

Ready for the whisper . . .

I will be quiet, and listen to what you have to say.
I will look for what it is you want me to do.
I lay down my music.
I let go of my responsibilites.
I lay down my mouth.
I lay down my film.
I lay down my rights.
I give you my future.
I lend you my purpose.
I hand you control.
I accept your love.
I return it with my life.
I am ready,
For you to lead the way.
I am willing just to do what you say.
I will trust, believe, and have faith that you dont just know the way.
You made the way.

A Life in the day of Zack

If my life were a book these would be the chapters:

(Chapters also relate relativly to academic grade level)

1) CRAZY!
2) Boy of 1001 expressions
3) I must be a genius
4) What is art?
5) Pikachu Bliss
6) The Fall
7) Crushed
8) Angst
9) Superficial perfection
10) Lights, Camera, Action
11) Top of the mountain, King of the hill, creme of the crop, A #1 . . .
12) Confusion's Sunset

Something to consider . . .

You Reading This, Be Ready

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life -

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?


~ William Stafford ~

Goals (reaching for the stars)

Goals this week:
Fill out college apps.
Not fall behind in Homework
Get some sleep

Goals this school year:
Find careers I am interested in persuing in college.
Grow closer to God.
Get accepted into GFU.
Be described as fun loving.

Goals in the next 5 years:
Engaged/married?
Graduate
Find a job that can support a family

Next 20 years:
Enjoy my own family
I want to be the worlds best Dad
Be an effective communicator
Enjoy my career
Be content with my lifestyle (modest)
Travel to Italy
Find my place in a church

Sorry if I am being too general I just thought I should get my ideas out even if they are not fully formed yet.

New Car!

Hey everybody if you haven't heard yet I just bought a car! It is a 1986 Toyota MR2. Here are some pictures:

Promised Pictures

My pictures from Colorado taken with my new camera are finally up! Check out the photo lab link on the right of this page!

Spiritual Physicallity

~Looking for my sprit and soul~


Mechanical things are easy to prove as real. We know that grass is real because we can touch it. Try and follow this line of logic for a second and you might understand why some people find it hard to believe in God: The mouth of a human chews food by moving up and down. That mechanical motion is caused by a mixing of two chemicals that heat the muscle fibers causing the muscle to expand or contract. All of these things are real and all of these things are physical things. How is the chemical released? Our body must just know. Our thoughts couldn't be a physical thing without spirit can they? Well the chemical is released by an electric impulse (shock) sent from the brain. The Brain sent the impulse as a physical reaction to impulse the tongue sent that the food had reached the mouth. Food touches tongue. Tongue reacts with electric shock to brain. Brain shoots back the shock to release the chemicals in the jaw. The jaw reacts to heat. All physical tangible reasons without any sort of spirit or higher power involved. Taking it a step further, Sadness is actually block on the chemicals in you brain that make you feel happy. These chemicals are a tangible liquid inside you. Certain medicines even claim to be able to release these blocks of happy chemicals to allow happiness in your life. Happiness and sadness are tangible things in your body. Assuming that tangible things are just objects without any sort of higher power needed to make them work. Emotions are tangible things inside you. Does that make your thoughts a tangible thing as well. I close my eyes and think of Kristin. I gain a clear mental image of her face. My brain recalls my memory of her to create an image. A series of electric positive and negative charges blend together to be read as an image (just like a computer that has no spirit or soul). Thoughts are a physical thing: They are a series of electric charges. If thoughts and ideas are all physical things then where is the spirit where is the soul? Are we just what we are programmed to be?

With logic like that I can understand how people find it hard to see God. They want to see physical proof. Tangible evidence. Where is the physical evidence that God exists? They say it is only a matter of perspective to consider the earth and everything in it physical evidence. You would have to already believe in God to believe that the earth is evidence of His existance because you would need to believe that he created. All of these things lead me to sayingthat it must be difficult to believe in God. People say "I don't even feel Him emotionally." No physical imprint and no emotional impact on a person means that to them (that is from their perspective) God does not exist.

What I can't understand is someone could believe that all of those wonderful physical reactions that allow us to chew and digest food or that allow us to create mental images of people or ideas about politics or quantum physics, could possibly be be a worldly creation. Nature who has no will or thought created Humans and monkeys and llama's by chance. It just so happened that all of the right matter collided together adapted over time into the creature that inhabit the earth today. If there were no humans to have baby's then how did a baby apear out of something besides a mother? Why don't we have babies appearing out of organic soup that just so happened by luck of nature (who has no spirit or soul) to create human life? How come when I put food in my mouth I have the choice whether to chew or not? Is it really just a physical series of reactions or is it more? Think about it. . .

Coming Soon

So to the right of this entry there is a link to my pictures page (called "My Photo Lab"). Check it out if you haven't already. Most importantly stay tuned for pictures from my trip to Colorado taken with my new camera. (this camera i got because I dunked Kristin in to the water with my other one)


Above is the pic of the new camera. It is a Canon Rebel XTi.

Prayer

Does anybody have that book that we got in Montana? I don't know if we got it there or if I brought it but it had a section where you wrote down prayer requests. I found mine recently and was amazed at how much I prayed for and even more amazed at how many were marked as answered. I think that sometimes we forget when God answers our prayers and it is easy to focus on the ones that he doesn't seem to answer. I noticed three in a row on my list that weren't marked as answered. They were actually just recently answered. Definitely not in the way I would have liked them to work out but worked out nonetheless. Pastor Jan told me something invaluable today: God will make everything ok as long as you give it to him so he can make it right. That is not an exact quote so if there is anything theologically unsound with that one let me know but honestly I hadn't seen it that way before. We are supposed to give things to God so hopefully they can work out and so he has the stress not us because we can't handle it all the time. He doesn't just take it; he handles it. I am going to be all right because of God. He didn't just save me but he is in the process of saving me. I have accepted him as God and run to Him all the time and that isn't where it ends. I kinda feel like I just figured out there is a whole life ahead of me filled with Him saving me. I would really hate to be alone right now. I am glad I am not.

It's Growing!

Growth is one of those things that doesn't usually happen while your watching. When your at school or work and your watching the clock the time just won't go, or if you have ever tried to measure yourself 3 times a day and not much happens. Somehow when you occupy yourself with thinking about something else and then you look back at whatever growth you were waiting for and it has noticable change. It's amazing! Somethings like tomatoes take water everyday and sunshine. Relationships take constant attenion and love. Our bodies ake food and water daily (and God if we are healthy). The point to all my rambling i guess is a reminder to not to forget to water what you want to grow. Water your relationships and plants; watch them grow.

I found what I was looking for . . . "The Fall"

I had always wondered but now have found:
(cherub is a word for angel of the second highest rank {archangel being the highest})

(The word "covering" is from the Hebrew word cakak, and means: to entwine, to fence in, cover over, protect, defend, hedge in)

"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit. Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying: 'Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners?'" (Isaiah 14:12-17)

This chapter from Isaiah is actually talking about the king of Babylon, but here this king is used as a metaphor of the devil, referred to here as "Lucifer, son of the morning." Originally, Lucifer was an angel. There are various references to angels in the Bible, but apart from Lucifer, only two are referred to by name: the archangels, Gabriel and Michael. Lucifer was also an archangel, having numerous lesser angels under his command.

Ezekiel chapter 28 also describes Lucifer in his original state, this time using the metaphor of the king of Tyre:

"Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord God: "You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you."'" (Ezekiel 28:12-15)

Clearly Lucifer was originally a magnificent archangel; that is, until something went wrong: "till iniquity was found in you."

"By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, that they might gaze at you." (Ezekiel 28:16-17)

What was the sin that Lucifer committed? From these passages in Ezekiel and Isaiah, we can see that this splendid archangel became proud and wanted to be like God. "Your heart was lifted up" and "You have said in your heart: I will ... exalt my throne above the stars of God ... I will ascend above the heights of the clouds and I will be like the Most High."

As a result, God drove Lucifer out and cast him down to the ground, and in this way Lucifer became the devil, otherwise referred to as Satan or the fallen angel.

Lucifer was created perfect in all his ways, but iniquity was found in him. It was not put there by God. Lucifer created it.
( this is found in Ezekiel 28:15 )
Like man, the angels were created perfect, and with a free will.

Satan was lifted up because of his beauty, he corrupted the wisdom by reason of his brightness (This is in Ezekiel 28:17)

When Lucifer was cast out of Heaven, one third of all the angels were cast out with him. (Rev.12:4,9)

Lucifer became Satan, and the fallen angels became Demons.

"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." Revelation 12:7-9

Photoshop Frenzy

This is me trying to find my own style ... (Click to Enlarge)

Faith and Trust

Trust game . . . Anyone know what I am talking about? One person stands behind another to catch them when they fall henceforth earning their trust through repetition. We played an adaption of this game where one person stood on the stage , fell back, and was caught by the entire group. Also we could choose to allow the group to bounce us up and down until we moved to the end of the line. It looked pretty similar to the picture here although that is just some random picture I found. Anyways now for the point of me writing all this down for you to read: It was interesting to see who trusted more easily then the next person. You could see the fear on people's faces. It was disheartening to see that we were scared but I believe that is natural. What amazed me even more was when people had a ook of extreme fear and with little to no hesitation they turned around and just fell. We didn't drop anyone (too hard). I am curious what was going through peoples mind. Why were they scared? Why did they overide their fear so quickly and fall? I was mildy scared. I was one of the last people and there were those before me like Rob who is an adult and we bounced him no problem. Rationally I had no reason to fear. I emotionally trusted the people that I saw who were there to catch me so I had no reason to fear emotionally. After reason and emotion have been calmed I still had some left over fear. Where does that stuff come from? It was easier to overide my fear with the youth group then with most other people. I am curious what God feels like when we won't fall into his arms. He is stronger than our youth group. He created us. . . This ties in a lot with the other game. I was supposed to be the one person to tell Chris the truth about where to go when he was blind folded and everyoen else just shouting random things. He was listening to me when I told him where to go at first and then he stepped on a piece of paper (the point of the game for the blind folded people is to avoid touching paper) and he lost all of his trust in me. He expected that by listening to me he would never hit paper if I was the one he was supposed to listen to. Do we expect that of God? He raised his head to my direction and then looked away and decided to not listen to me again. He hit three other papers while being lead a stray by others while I tried to regain his trust. There was nothing I could do or say to make him believe me again. I am not sure how he made it back to listening to me. I am glad he did because they got him turned around and starting to head back to the beginning. It really did not feel good at all to know I had lost his trust. Everyone was yelling and I didn't know how to get him back. Scary stuff ... good thing it's only a game, right?

Thown out on a technical fowl

Who knew that it would be so difficult to achieve peace, or that it takes so much chaos to get there? I believe situations are like playdough. All different colors and some more stuborn than others but all of them are maluable. My goal is to push this situation like playdough until it looks the way I want it to. Call me controlling, Call me a dictator, Nickname me Stalin, but I am determined to make it work. I will sit in the right room in the right way and at the right time and it will work. So I am going to try my best not to be upset and just push forward until things mesh.

Guitar Renovation

So for those who don't know or have forgotten I have an electric epiphone black les paul junior. It is not the best guitar out there by any means . . . It is actually pretty crappy as far as tone and sound go. It doesn't even look that impressive. I want to do a few things to it, first of which I consider to be most influencial on the tone of a guitar: the pickup. I would like to change it to the second picture. This will reduce the muddy sound that my guitar often puts out. I would also like to sand down the blocky body a bit a paint something on it. I have a few ideas . . . like pic 2. Any feeback or ideas for paint would be cool. Let me know, Thanks!

?uestions

What happens when we feel compelled to sin? Why do we have a human nature that is sinful? If within someone there are two voices saying two different things and one says take action and the other says not to how are we to know which to listen to? Everyone knows that killing is bad, lying is wrong, drunkenness is sinful but what about things that aren't so black and white? I was thinking about some ways to tell what is the right thing to do in a situation and thought about the popular saying "What would Jesus do?" or W.W.J.D. for short. Well I am not Jesus so this brings up a few questions such as Jesus was friends with prostitutes so should I do the same? or in a relationship how should someone treat their other half?. Jesus gave us no example for that. I am curious if Jesus would if he were in my position continue to play music or would he preach? Would he sacrifice what he wants for his family or for someone he loves? Some things are so unclear. Its almost like I can only see six inches in front of my nose and even some of those things are blurry. Questions about purpose and life's mission and how to change the world are serious ones that are scary when the steps are blurry. I guess all this leads back to Faith. Without faith none of these questions have answers and the little light that allowed me to see six inches in front of me goes out. Sometimes Faith feels like walking across the grand canyon: You are stepping on air but because you have your eyes closed and you believe so much that you won't fall, you simply don't. My advice to all: Don't look down.

Almost lost . . . again

Has it been one or two years? I don't even remember now but I do know that I have almost lost this thing at least 100 times. 5 of those times were in states other than Oregon too. I almost lost it today as well. I decided to bring a soccer ball for lunch time today. I took everything out of my pockets and set it down with my keyring. I made sure my keyring got set down on top so I wouldn't lose it. Being my rediculous self I forgot I put it oon top and when i picked up my stuff it slid right off into the endless grass feilds. I surveyed the ground 10 feet in every direction just in case it flew off a little more than sliding. I couldnt find it and it was time for class. I went to class and continued writing my screenplay often thinking back to where else the ring could be. School got out at 2:05 and I ran back over to the field and looked for about 30 seconds and there it was shining in the sun calling out my name (metaphorically speaking). Montana , Idaho, and Washington could not claim it's powers and neither will my school. The raw earth just can't handle the magnitude of power it holds. One ring to rule them all!!!

Video Installation Art?

I am working on a video piece that is slightly experimental. The whole question that the piece revolves around is "Are you plugged in?" The type of video that it is does not just exist on a DVD that you can pop in your player and watch whenever you want. The video that I am creating is meant to only be viewed in a very specific place. I am creating that space in a room at my school to be set up for our all school gallery called "Art is my Voice". The room will be very dark being that the only light sources are strobe lights with long intervals and single television set playing my video looped (looped meaning when it reaches the end it seamlessly goes back to the beginning and plays). The room will also be littered with hundreds of feet of video cables almost emulating a jungle like feel. The walls will be decorated with things aiding the point of the video. The video is from the perspective of a young person. The questions that it brings up should range pretty wide. I am interested to see reactions to this one . . . If you would like to come see it let me know and I will get you information on when the gallery showing will be. I should be putting the video up on my you tube site (linked in the upper right hand corner of this page as "My videos") after the showing but be assured that watching the video alone will not have the same effects.

Cosmic Patriotism

So many are probably curious about what cosmic patriotism is. Let me see if I can shed some light. The premise (idea) is that pessimism is blinding because you don't allow yourself to see the good. In the very same way optimism is equally blinding because you don't allow yourself to see the bad. Instead of trying to look at things with a positive or negative perspective you should look at it from a patriotic perspective. It is suggested that being a patriot of a country is blinding because you are investing in an entity that has distinct enemies and you are only self interested. This all leads to the conclusion that you should be a patriot of the cosmos (universe) therfore you would be interested in all mankind and mother nature. If you were proud to be from earth instead of America we might get a long easier. Christians especially are encouraged to not to be blind or self interested but interested in everything that God loves (which is everything). [whether or not God loves the devil is arguable but in my opinion is unnecesary to know for sure] If I was a patriot I would go out of my way for a stranger as if they were my friend. That thing that people call your coinscience would become one with instinct and [re]action. Can you live a day with everyones benefit in your heart? Is it possible?

~THINK~FEEL~ACT~

Words, Words, Words.

I am now checking at least three blogs and commenting on them daily so I guess it should not be that big of a challenge to write a little bit myself each day. I won't promise essays or epic poetry or even that I will address anyone directly in this blog. My URL pretty much explains the reason why I figure I should actually write something. Any questions? Please let me know if I am being too kryptic. This is for you to understand, not to make me seem more mysterious.