What college does to my brain...

I really don't know exactly what college does to my brain, I can only make slightly educated guesses based on my reactions to said "college". I will explain as best I can.

I had a presentation to do today in my Social problems class. In my presentation, I talked about all the ways Employee Shortage could be constructed as a social problem and different causes and effects. It went pretty well I am sure, marks are pending, but I have reason to belive they will be favorable. Here is the thing though. I kind of pulled it together in terms of how I would present this issue, and all weekend I knew I didn't have it nailed down. So for example, on monday I got up and worked on it. I couldn't come up with anything concrete so it was all kind of up in the air, for this reason it was on my mind all day. When I went to think about it, I couldn't focus and when I went to take a break, I couldn't get it off my mind.

This sort of behaviour quickly reduces you to a snivelling human form, curled up like a shrimp in the corner.

I prophesied what today would look like last night at around quater to 1. I said to my roommate. "Right now I am kinda freakin out about this, just really unsettled about it, and you know what? Tomorrow I am going to get up and do my presentation, and I am going to get decent marks or better, and I am going to wonder why I ever worried about it at all."

Needless to say I was right.

Change Gears!

Living with Steve and Brandon is a slice. It really is. I'm not quite sure what its a slice of, some strange cheese from some foreign land maybe. Or spam. I dunno, whatever it is, its strange and wierd, and lots of fun.

We are searching for a new pad to set up in, rent is going from 900 a month to 2200 a month here, and that is total stupididty. So we are outy. We looked at a one bedroom basement suite for 700 a month, and of coure I was all over that idea, but Steve and Brandon were not so adventurous as to try and squeeze the 3 of us in there. So we are lookin for somethin a little more spacious. HOPEFULLY we can find a place for 1000 bucks or less...I REALLY want to stay with them, and I don't want to break the bank either...

I think I am going to work next semester and pay off the ol debt. Then camp and then maybe the other semester that I need, and then another 4 months of work or something, and then camp or 4 more months or something. Then In Sept 08 I would entet the TEN program at GPRC and finish in the spring of 2010, at the age of 25. That would make this a 6 year degree! with some big breaks. I dunno. I just think of myself as a teacher, and I love kids and thats why I want to teach, but really, am I ready for that? There are other things I want to experience I think first. Stretch myself. Go travelling again to africa, to scotland, to somewhere... I think Ori, Tal and I need to go on a trip somewhere overseas for a month or something...That would rule.

Anyway, just workin through some stuff. Who knows where I will be in a year? Not me, thats for sure...

How can we know? Just gotta live life.

Love Wins!

RESCUE!

I just got out of soccer class, and since I was injured I sat out today. I was not the only one injured, Katie and Luke (classmates) were also out with injuries, so we chatted the class away. Katie ended up sharing her life and where she has come from this last year and I won't go into detail, but I had to blog this and just tell everyone to take a few moments and praise God for his hand in her life. God has rescued her from hell on earth and I have been totally pumped from hearing that ever since class got out! God is rescuing people all around us and we don't even know it! How can you not love this kind of God!?!?! You can be totally oblivious to his goodness and presence in your life and he doesn't care, he just rescues you anyway! MAN I love this!!!

Pray that Katie would be given the ultimate joy in knowing her rescuer. And partake of that joy yourself, today and always!

Jesus wins!
Kaleb

God Thoughts

When Moses asked God Who he was, what is the name of the God he was interacting in extremely real ways with, and he said...I AM...

I wonder if Moses was lookin for a little more...

Like really. Names say a lot. Maybe they aren't as meaningful in our culture as they are in others, but I sure get the impression that to the jews, names are huge. You are your name. There is power in a name. Its like a personal prophecy. Names got changed at times because the old name simply would not do anymore, it was no longer the definition of that character.

Names.

God said his name was simply

I AM

What do you do with that?

After all Moses had experienced I am sure that wasn't new information to him. Whoever it was he was dealing with, they were beyond real. Firestorms, Earthquakes, Red Seas. Actually, forget that being Beyond real. Thats simply real and we haven't even scratched the surface of what real is. Thats how I feel anyway.

What else can you say about a God who just...is? There are more facets to him than sides of a marble it would seem. Which is hard because if I can figure God out then maybe I can figure my life out. The longer I am a Christian the less I know. Which is where trust comes in, I just said to myself with an internal smirk.

But nothing else rightly can be said about God in our human languages, because anything else leaves something out. And no-one is left out in God's creation. He is above it all, he loves it all, he interacts with all of it. The Godman Jesus embodied this. Prostitutes, Destitute, Homeless, Rich, Poor, Lame, Normal, Insiders, Outsiders, Upside downs, Demon Possessed, Military people, Religious People, Athiests, he connected with all of them. GOD connected with all of them in meaningful and transforming ways. I heard a black guy speak on the bloodline of Jesus and how every ethnic group in existence today and members of every economic and social status are represented in the bloodline of Jesus. The blood at the the foot of the cross is the blood of everyone who ever lived and will live. No matter who you are or where you are, your blood is in there, amongst the thorns, flowing down the face and chest and dripping off the toes.

I don't know what lies ahead for me in my life and what steps I should be taking to get there. And it is currently frustrating me to the point of sleep deprevation last night. I simply cannot work my head around all this. I am in Gods hands and he has lead me here, and he will lead me from here, but for some reason that is not rest for me at the moment. If God were exclusively MY God, I figure I would not have these issues because I would have a much better understanding of him, cause he would be like me. Thank God that is not the case (no, seriously. Praise Jesus he is not like me. Or you. Or anyone you see on TV. Those people make pretty bad gods. Ok, really bad...) But if I am in the ha.....OK, here is another problem I have with Western Spirituality and Christianity and Culture, we are so independent and individualist that it makes me sick. I hate it. I seriously do. People so often expect you to figure things out with God on your own, and HOW CAN YOU? Dammit, you can't! Before there was even sin God said it was no good that Adam was alone. Sin hadn't even came into the picture! So how much more are we in need of community, of a bigger perspective on the God who created US, not YOU and ME, US. Yeah my life is in Gods hands, but guess what, so is yours, and that is reason enough to get to know you. Yeah God has a plan for my life, but GUESS WHAT, he has a plan for yours too and so lets work together to figure out what it is. This is what Jesus does, he brings people together who are TOTALLY different and says lets eat and they do and hes there and it works and its beautiful. The last time I ate with someone of a different socio-economic status or ethnic background would have been years ago probably (Nevermind, Moldova...three months :) WHEN was the last time I ate with a stranger?

Next time you eat with someone different than you, be thankful because that is a sacred blessing that most people today avoid.

Well I think I need to go for a walk or something because this is all just comin and it doesn't want to stop and I don't think I can type it out fast enough...pretty soon I will just be yelling and as much as I enjoy yelling, I would rather yell at and with God than this stupid computer screen. If you are feeling it too, I encourage you to go somewhere and yell with God (for those of you less adventurous folk, talking firmly is nearly as satisfying...) Get worked up about this stuff, I think he likes seeing his children active. God is bigger than your parents, he can handle whatever volume of activity you should choose to engage him with.

Is anybody dreaming?

Corn pops taste better at 2:18am, they really do. They bring a soothing release to the inner tension that arises from the uncofmortable knowledge that you will not sleep anywhere near the length you shall wish tonight.

Is anyone out there living in the tension between the what is and what could be? Does anyone live with this deep seated unsettledness because we are missing something? Does anyone get frustrated because our world is on fire and everyone is sleeping? Does anyone dare to dream of what could be?

Dreamers got it rough. They see another world, a better world so clearly and vividly that its almost real. And they are so aware of the goodness of that world that it makes this world detestable, and yet this is the reality they live in. They see two worlds in total contrast.

I'm a bit of a dreamer. Was ever since I was young. But it caused me a lot of grief and so for a time I medicated that pain in many ways. All that did was render me more and more lethargic. The world sucks...so what? Christianity was a distant hope if any at all.

But God wouldn't let me be. He showed me what had become of myself and gave me the clarity of mind to understand that it was not a better way to live, and that things needed to change.

One year later, here I am.

I am still suffering from complacency (Oh God, how you HATE complacency!!!) but the more I think and hope for a world that WILL be, the more I feel the strain of our great fall, and the more I am groaning with all of creation for our restoration.

I hope that my generation will be the dreaming generation. I see so much medication going on all around me and its going to kill us all. The Kingdom that Jesus is at work establishing on earth is one of hope, joy, love, celebration, and peace. May we dream vividly of that kingdom and may our lives reflect this dream! Oh God that we would hold fast to the hope you have given us. We have been ransomed from the kingdom of death, and with our freedom bought with the blood of Christ we can live the dream of your kingdom in the harsh and cold reality we see around us today.

We can and we will.

And then the world will see.