This question has been plaguing my mind for the last couple of days and it almost seems impossible to answer unless it possess some kind of paradoxical truth. Something I am inclined to believe. The question is this:

How can one stand for truth and virtue while living a life full of mercy, grace, and forgiveness?

I saw that the famous pastor Bill Hybels calls himself a progressive now on the back of Jim Wallis' new book "the great awakening." No progressive stand for a much more relative approach to truth. Progressives are all about everyone being equal and that no one is better than anyone else. This really does away with absolute truth, which seems like a necessary belief for a pastor. I am generalizing to keep the blog short, but it seems that many modern day christians have found a way to answer my big question like Shane Claiborne, Jim Wallis, and now Bill Hybles, or have they?

This is the question going through my head and I will let everyone know when I find the answer, cuz then all the world's problems will pretty much be done away with.

-Joshua

moms

I think moms are the coolest in the world. Maybe its just my mom, but I think its the mom in general too.

I am saying this because I'm looking at an Alicia Keys cd that my mom just sent me in the mail. There is not many cooler things than coming home from a lonely day and having an unknown package waiting for you at your dorm. Moms are always ready to serve you for some weird reason. 

Sometimes we get mad at moms but it is impossible to stay mad at moms, and if anyone ever messes with our moms that just really pisses us off. Moms don't much care about their own lives, they just want you to be number one. Moms are the coolest. 

I can't believe my mom even knows that I like Alicia Keys, but she finds out everything. Sometimes I don't want her to know everything, but she just knows anyway, its like some weird code. Its like there exists a special bond between kids and moms, maybe cuz of the whole "looking like a planet for nine months and still having to go on with your normal life because nobody around really understands what is going inside of your stomach especially if they have a penis cuz that can't happen to them so its easier to stay away" thing. 

So thanks for doing that for me mom, if you read my blog. Or just if you are a mom in general, props to you. Oh yeah and I think mothers day is coming up too

It's not about the titles, its about the testimonies...

-Tony Campolo (Quoting his pastor)

Infinity

Just so everyone knows, I have officially counted to infinity. I took some time yesterday to finish that off, it was not as hard as many people think, at least for me. 

I am planning to do it again this summer if anyone cares to join me. I will do it as I write some music on the road.

Joshua

Destiny

My camera is broken so I have not been able to put up any pics or videos lately, sorry I know everyone wants to see some! hehe. At least I like them.

I have this really great teacher that discussed the idea of fate vs. destiny today. He explained that fate has this negative connotation while destiny is this beautiful idea that we hold in our heads, the idea that we were meant or 'created' to do something. Its like there is some kind of romance behind destiny (That is the coolest word in the world, romance). We often do not live out the destiny in our lives and live for some lesser purpose, when we live true we live according to our destiny. He explained that this is one thing that separated the Romans from the Greeks in ancient times. The Greeks saw fate while the Romans saw destiny and changed the course of history fulfilling their destiny, pretty abstract idea, but intriguing none the less.

Life can bring us to so many places. I think sometimes we look at our lives and say 'man, what happened? How did I get here?' That is a good place to be because we realize the fated, meaningless life that we are living rather than the life we are created to live. We need to get off our butts and discover the destiny that we have, I believe. My teacher talked about this in my Western Civilization class (You'll see I talk about that class a lot, its amazing!) so they are his ideas but I agree. We must have some sort of consciousness (the popular term today) rather than some mundane, predictable existence. I want to ask the question to myself every day, "would I write a book about my life? Would it challenge people for the better?" Most times I think I would say no, but there are times when I know I could say yes.