Viking Restaurant

Evidence

I thought that this was funny. It could be used as evidence that I was a groomsman in Vincent and Kiko's wedding, which actually, I was not.

Still, I got to experience the honor for a brief few moments as a stand-in.

Wedding Weekend

This past week my life has been more viscerally exciting in a matter of days than it has been all summer. Ive seen tons of people, Ive had a ton of fun, and best of all, I got to see Vincent and Kiko Howard get married. I guess Ill just give my top highlights in no particular order:

1) Josiah as the Master of Ceremonies: I think you would have had to have been there to truly comprehend the sight of Josiah yelling at a crowd of mixed ages "Im serious! Get your butts downstairs because Kiko's going to throw the freakin' bouquet!"

2) Matt back from Africa: The guy has been living in the bush for two years now, getting some fantastic experience in missions. Its great to finally see him permanently back in the states.

3) Phil back from Africa: We picked this guy up from the airport last week after he had spent five months helping to build a US embassy in Ghana. The guy has some seriously intriquing stories to tell.

4) Stephan Stewart the Marine: This guy had just rolled in from Marine boot camp. He also had to spend a night in jail on the way down for speeding. It was as if he had passed through the fires of hell just to be at the wedding, and he survived with honor and a girlfriend by his side to boot.

5) The Entertainment: Vince and Kiko pulled no stops when it came to music at their wedding. We got some nice jazz from Stewart and Kucks, a beautiful set from Anne Watts, and a rockin' into the night jam from Wardell and Dixon. I got to sing a Sam Cooke medley and Mr. Galpin provided some much appreciated poetry. And the guests truly danced the night away into the late evening hours.

6) Cole back from Seminary in Boston: Ive had some fun nights hanging out with Cole ever since he got back into town, and hes been able to give me the inside lowdown on seminary life and on living in the northeast.

7) Psalm 16: This is the Scripture that I got to read at the wedding. Im glad I was asked to read this passage, because its been an amazing passage to meditate on this week. The Lord truly does bless us with a beatiful inheritance: Himself.

8) The Look on Vincent's Face: The man was glowing, and shedding a tear or two, when Kiko walked down the aisle. It was one of the best Vince moments ever, a moment when the grace of the gospel of Christ was on display for everybody to see. All you had to do was to look at Kiko and then look into Vincent's eyes, and you could see firsthand the wealth of grace that God has bestowed on their lives.

9) The Rehearsal Dinner speeches: I particularly liked Lowen's, in which he said that Vincent is the classic case example of God taking someone you would expect to turn out one way and turning him into someone you would never expect.

10) Perry Moving Back to Town: So glad to have this guy back in Chattanooga. His moving back was unrelated to the wedding, but it happened at the same time, and Im so excited about living with him, Lowen, and Kieth.

11) Vincent's Reworking of "My Father's House" by Bruce Springsteen for the wedding ceremony. I can honestly say that this song has never sounded better, not even by Bruce himself, and I loved the new final lyrics written by Vincent himself.

12) Lookout Lake Bed and Breakfast: This is where all the festivities were held. Yeah, it was pretty hot and muggy outside and the lake was only half full, but it was still a beautiful place to have a wedding. I think it was a great choice.

13) Seeing Vincent's Family: I spent some time with Vincent's family up in Maryland a couple years ago and it was good to see his grandparents, his dad, and his brothers again. I was also glad to see Brae back from a year in China, her sisters finally new students at Covenant, and of course, Lowen, an old friend and new housemate who happens to have an awesome new girlfriend to boot. I also got to meet new members of the family like Vincent's Uncle Vincent and Vincents stepmom Donna. But I was sad to have missed seeing Vincent's uncle Damien and aunt Kate who had to stay back in Maryland.

14) Julian back from Harvard Law School: Julian wore an incredible pink shirt and tie to the wedding. It was a sight to behold!

15) Brent catching the garter. It gave me hope for single men in their late twenties.

16) All of the other many faces of great people I got to see this weekend: There really was a ton of people in town this weekend, and there was a ton of people from town that I dont get to see that much. Overall, there was simply a ton of people. And I enjoyed seeing every one of them.

Pirate Songs

Im not sure what I think of this yet, but you have to admit, this is interesting: a 43-track "pirate songs" album with Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, Loudon Wainwright III, Richard Thompson, Lucinda Williams, Bryan Ferry, Sting, and Bono (to only name a few).

This is not exactly your typical "Pirates of the Caribbean" tribute album.

Crazy Week

I have so much to write about and so little time right now.

Its been a crazy week at Covenant. New students have arrived and old students are returning. Ive met a gazilion people in the past week, and its been really stimulating. I wish life was always this exciting. I find the kind of work I do at Covenant to be really enjoyable, because at the end of the day I love interacting with Covenant students, both pre- and post-arrival.

Vincent and Kiko's wedding is this week, and everybody and their mother is rolling into town for it. This is going to be the biggest reunion of friends of mine since May 2005 when I got my diploma. Some have already started to roll in. My friend Cole has been back from seminary in Boston and we have already spent some good time together as he got back almost two weeks ago. My friend Julian is here in town for two weeks before he goes back to Harvard Law School. Ive got two (count em' two!) friends coming in from Africa of all places, Phil and Matt. We picked Phil up from the airport last night. Matt should be here tomorrow.

Im reading scripture at the wedding so I get to go to all the rehearsal festivities, and I get to sing some at the reception (im thinking of singing a Sam Cooke medley).

Added to all of this is the fact that I am immensely busy at work this week trying to cement all of my fall travel plans before September 1.

On a personal note, I guess you could say Ive been experiencing some spiritual clarity for the past few weeks. I wouldnt say Ive become super-Christian overnight by any means, but Ive felt a lot more peace lately about my relationship with God. And as Ive begun to reflect on some of my struggles, which really peaked this summer, I realize that so many of them took place because I was never fully committed to Christ. I was a double-minded man in a lot of ways, and I feel in my heart right now, I have finally more fully surrendered my life to Christ. I know thats a vague thing to say. What does it look like to fully surrender to Christ, and how do I know that Ive done that? I cant really explain it, other than to say I have just stopped holding back from Him in ways that I used to.

Really, the only way to go, and I mean the ONLY way, is to plunge yourself headfirst into Christ. You cant tepidly hold back, clinging to doubts and fears, reserving a back up plan for yourself. You cant have one foot in the water so to speak. Thats cliche I know, but I dont know how else to say it really. You really just have to cannonball into this thing we call faith and leave doubt behind. Its what Christ demands. He wants all or nothing.

When you think about it, TOTAL surrender is the theme of a lot of Christ parables. You have to count the cost, sell all that you have, give all that youve got, lose your soul to find it, die to live, serve only one master, take up the cross, leave house and family, drop everything and FOLLOW Christ. Anthing less than that is not faith according to James. Its wavering and double-minded, leaving a man to be driven and tossed about by the waves. Thats pretty much where Ive been at for a while. You just cant hold back from Christ, not one bit.

For a long time, I have hated the idea of saying something so definite, so concrete about faith. I wanted to appreciate faith's complexity, its paradoxical nature, its mystery and incompleteness. I thought it was necessary, even commendable, to keep a little doubt sprinkled on top of faith. I mean, that just keeps us honest doesnt it? No! It just keeps us in sin, and it makes us miserable, and it hardens our hearts toward God, and it corrupts us completely in our inner being. We must have a strong, secure, unwavering faith in Christ that does not look back. That is the only answer. We hate to hear it when we are not surrendered to Christ in that way, but it is the truth, and it only makes sense to those who have ears to hear it. And you wont have ears to hear it until you completely trust Christ without any reservation. Thats the only answer this life holds.

Anyway, enough soapbox for now I guess. These have been my thoughts lately, so Im just putting them out there.

Communion on Sunday

My church had a communion service this past Sunday, and I often enjoy this service and benefit greatly from it, but I must say that I experienced something really out of the ordinary this past week. Im used to doing a lot of reflection during the service, and my church does a really good job of giving a lot of time for reflection because we all go up individually to kneelers to receive the communion. But my reflection is usually just that: mere reflection. I think about my sin, about my current relationship with Christ, about the past week, etc. And usually, by the time I get back to my seat, the effect of my reflection has already worn down a great deal. Its not that my reflection isnt sincere. Its just really brief, and it doesnt typically have a deep, lasting impact.

This week I noticed a change. To put it simply, I felt overwhlemed during the service and utterly aware of my own sin. But it wasnt the awareness of sin that usually just leads to self-loathing. No it was the kind of awareness that helped me to embrace the gospel more. The more my sin became exposed to me, in this awful, raw way, the more I was able to find rest in the gospel. I cant really explain it, but I really sensed rest and assurance and forgiveness, which is saying a lot for me these days. I know that experience isnt everything, and that sometimes we have to believe things that we just dont feel, but I can honestly say that on Sunday I felt it. I want to feel it all the time, and I know that in this world thats unrealistic, with the constant attacks against us. But I was thankful for this moment on Sunday, and for the effect its had on me all week. Ive been able to see Christ through a whole lot of sin and shame, and its been good.

From St. Augustine

"It was a sweet load pressing on me, light as a dreamload, and the thoughts that I tried to direct toward you were like the struggles of those trying to wake, only to fall back into a depth of sleep. Though no one wants to sleep forever, realizing that wakefulness is the higher state, yet a man puts off waking when torpor, making heavy all his limbs, smothers him sweetly in slumber, against his better sense that 'it was time to be rising.' In that very way, though I knew that rising to your love were better than lapsing into my sloth, the former act had my approval and wish, the latter my pleasure and assent. No excuse was left me when you told me when you told me, 'Awake, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.' I was defenseless when you urged your truth, since that truth I had already accepted. All I could mumble, muzzily, was: Later on. Or: Any moment now. Or: Wait a bit. But the any-moment never came, and wait-a-bit stretched out to endless bits. It mattered little that 'I took an inner comfort in your law, since another law, that of my outer limbs, made war on my mind's law, and took me captive to the law of sin in my limbs.' Sin's law is the dominance of compulsion, which leads and lords it over the unwilling soul, which was willing to fall into such merited captivity. 'Who will deliver me, in this pitiful state, from death's body, if not Jesus Christ, our Lord, through His bounty?'"

"With what verbal reverberations I lashed my soul, trying to force it along with me in my quest for you. But it balked, it would not move, though it could not excuse itself-all its arguments had run out, it had been refuted. It could only tremble in silence, holding it death to escape the stream of habits that were draining it to death."

"As I thrashed about, stalling, I made bodily motions some persons might be incapable of, even if they wanted to perform them, either because they lack a limb or the limb is tied, or they are weakened by malady or otherwise debilitated. Yet I, when tearing my hair, pounding my head, hugging tight my knee with laced fingers, was doing exactly what I willed with my body-the willing would not have been followed by this effect if my limbs' response had been blocked. Yet I could not do what I far more eagerly wanted to do, and which I should have been able to do at will, since what I wanted to do at will was---to will. Here the faculty to be affected by the will was itself. And what it had to do was to be itself. Yet it could not. My body's limbs were moved by the soul's lightest volition, receiving its direction, yet the soul did not respond to its own eager willing, when all it had to perform was to will."

"Off in the direction I was turned toward, though I was afraid to advance into it, Lady Self-Control was revealed in all her chaste majesty, serene, quietly mirthful, smiling me on to her, lest I hold back. To welcome and to hug me she reached her holy arms out, and in them were throngs of persons setting me their example, innocent boys and girls, young men and women-all ages, including chaste widows and women still virgin in old age. In all of them, Self-Control was not sterile but 'fertile with children of happiness' by you, Lord, her husband. She teased me with a smiling insistence: Can you not do what all of these have? Or do you think they did it by themselves, without God their Lord? He it was who gave me to them. Why do you stand alone, which is no standing at all? Throw yourself on him!! Do you think he will not stay your fall? Give up fear, and throw yourself-he will catch you, and will heal you."

Looking to the Future

Anybody who has been reading my blog for the past two weeks may have noticed that Ive been in a bit of a funk. This usually happens whenever I am experiencing personal problems, going through an existential crisis, and succumbing to a lack of exercise all at the same time. But Ive been feeling better lately.

I have felt pretty productive this week, and so Im trying to think of ways to remain productive over the weekend. Productivity clears my head and helps me get better sleep. And so I think I'll work on applications to graduate school.

Now I have applied to go to graduate school every year since 2002 and Ive never gone. And so you might say I have a bit of a complex about it. I have to wonder, am I ever actually going to go! One of my professors told me once that I have this neurotic tendency to avoid ever actually moving on to the next phase in my life. I like to get really close to moving on, but I always allow something to hold me back, some excuse (whether it be financial issues, or a desire to get more experience in some other area, or a desire to remain close to home and friends) to keep me from actually making that leap into graduate studies. And yet, I have pretty much always felt that it is something that I eventually need to do.

Well, I am once again going to throw myself out there and put a couple of applications in. My professor has to be downright exasperated with me since I ask him to fill out recommendations about 2-3 times a year! Well, at least I think I have a more narrowed down approach toward what I actually want to do.

This year I am going to apply to two schools, Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and St. Johns College in Annapolis, MD. I would go to Westminster for a masters in theological or biblical studies, and I would go to St. Johns for a masters in the liberal arts.

Now let me emphasize the fact that though I am applying for these schools, I will not necessarily attend these schools next fall. Westminster will defer my enrollment date for up to a year, and St. Johns will defer for five years! (I couldnt believe that when they told me, but its true) But I am eager to go ahead and get the application in so I know what my options are. I mean, come on, I work in an admissions office. I tell people to apply early everyday. So Im only practicing what I preach.

So why Westminster and St. Johns? Well, they are two very different schools that would send me in very different directions. And my ultimate decision will depend on what factors I ultimately find more important. Let me break it down for you. Let's start with Westminster.

Westminster is currently the more likely choice for me. This is partly because I have always seen myself going to seminary, and I havent had much time to get used to the idea of going to a two year graduate school for the liberal arts, especially since I have already emphasized the liberal arts in my undergraduate studies. Westminster would also provide a more focused path toward future studies or a career. I would probably focus on theological studies or biblical studies (or both) if I went to Westminster, and those are fields I imagine that I will want to continue to pursue more seriously after my masters. So it would make sense to get started in these areas, and not get sidetracked.

Why Westminster over other seminaries? Its funny, because I have applied to just about every major Reformed seminary and I have seriously thought that I would attend each one of them at one point in my life. I went through a big "Im going to Covenant Seminary" phase, and I went through a big "Im going to Reformed Theological Seminary" phase, and I went through a big "Im going to Westminster Seminary in California" phase. Ive also thought I would go to Regent College in Vancouver, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston, and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. I have visited all of these places, and I have seriously considered them all, and I have succesfully avoided them all. Each one would have been a great school to attend. But for one reason or another, I just didnt go.

Ive also thought about Westminster in Philly before, but Ive been scared of that place in times past, because of its reputation for being intellectually stuffy and a little bit too "Reformed" for its own good. I dont like ultra-conservative, Reformed circles. They are one of the scariest Christian sub-cultures on earth if you ask me, because they are typically smart enough to make you look stupid, and stupid enough to apply the Scriptures the way that they do.

Westminster has had a reputation for harboring the kind of community that wishes that the last four and a half centuries never happened because they think that life has never been better than it was in 16th century Geneva. Its that kind of reputation that scares the bejeebers out of me when I consider going to Westminster.

But I think in the end, their reputation in that area is probably heinously misfounded. Ive just met too many normal, cool-thinking people affiliated with Westminster. I just cant believe that I couldnt find a community there that would suit me, and I am already convinced that their academic standards are among the best that seminaries have to offer. I am really fond of some of their faculty, who tend to publish great theological output. Peter Enns, whom I have posted about before, is a good example.

So in the end, I could see myself swallowing my fears and attending Westminster, ultimately getting a first rate education in theology and biblical studies. But what about St. Johns?

There is only one real draw to going to St. Johns College: I get to do nothing but read great books and talk about them with others!

Ultimately, the program isnt focused toward any specified goal. They pretty much tell you up front that you shouldnt go to St. Johns for any kind of specific training in a field. You should go just for the sheer experience of it. You go to learn, and to grow as a person; to read classic books and to engage with a sharp community of learners on a daily basis. I see it as a character development program.

Part of me wants to go to St. Johns just because Ive always dreamed of getting an education like this, where I would have nothing but time to read all of the books Ive always wanted to read and where I can just take the time to reflect and dialogue with others about the deepest questions in life. I have alway felt frustrated with the American system of education, where we have to spend so much time in a classroom listening to lectures. St. Johns cuts lectures pretty much completely out of the system. You work with tutors and with small discussion groups, and you spend almost all of your time doing the one thing you would wish you could be doing during lectures, which is reading the actual books! I think this is the best style of education, and I would love to experience it in a place as beautiful as Annapolis, MD.

Im also drawn to the fact that St. Johns is not a Christian school. Dont get me wrong. I am immensely grateful that I received a Christian education, but there is a part of me that wants to branch out and expereince an education in a broader environment. Ive been in Christian college circles pretty much since I graduated high school and Ive felt a real need to experience something different for some time now.

On the other hand, I do question whether or not I could ever be satisfied with professors who could only invest in me academically, and not spiritually. I am someone who learns greatly from a person's life, much more so than from his/her words. and so I know it would be important to me that my professors live upright lives. I just cant imagine really learning from someone whose ethics severly contradicted mine. How could I respect them? I have a hard enough time learning from Christian professors that I dont respect.

Then again, I shouldnt be bound to learn only from those I respect, because thats like learning only from those I agree with, and thats not ideal learning at all. So it might be good for me to be in an environment like St. Johns and to learn from those who I might disagree with significantly in major areas.

In the end, I think I could learn a lot at either school. Both programs excite me for one reason or another, and I really do feel a degree of confidence that I am going to ultimately attend one of these two schools. I just feel that Ive reached the end of being wishy washy about it. I want to be back in school. Thats just where my heart is right now. And so hopefully, I can get this appliication process done quickly and start making some decisions come the fall.

Denison Witmer

Ive been listening a bit to Denison Witmer. My friend Robert recommended him to me, and Robert is typically really successful at recommending good music to me. A big plus for me is that Witmer has hooked up with the Innocence Mission on his most recent album "Are You A Dreamer" and so this new album sounds a bit like an Innocence Mission album with a male lead singer.

I recommend the songs "Little Flowers," "Ringing of the Bell Tower," and "Finding Your Feet Again."

Oh, and this guy is apparently a friend and compatriate of Sufjan Stevens so you are going to find some similarities between the two I think. Sufjan plays the banjo on "Little Flowers."