nate unplugged

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nate's journal: because i was told to never write anything i wouldn't put my name to.
this is for posterity... so be honest.
all bible references will be NIV unless otherwise noted.
poetry   |    the great debate   |    my utmost for His highest
current journal   |    january 03   |    december 02   |    november 02   |    october 02

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02-27-03 beautiful day for a neighbor

It's such a good feeling to know you're alive.
It's such a happy feeling: You're growing inside.

There was a time when one of the biggest thrills of my day was watching Mister Rogers' Neighborhood with Jo. We would guess what color sweater he was going to wear, and we were always thrilled when the "speedy delivery" guy came. Mister Rogers sang. He showed us how they make crayons. He said he wanted to be my neighbor, and I believed him. He fed his fish, tied his shoes, and took us to make-believe land. He was cool.

02-25-03 heavens declare

I spent my weekend in Cook, MN, in a cabin on Lake Vermillion. I stood out on the frozen lake for a while saturday night. Watching the stars, listening to the boom of the ice. Laying on my back, the stars took over my vision, leaving only a few dark pines around the edges of my sight. And so many stars. It's hard to believe that the diamond-clad Orion that I saw from a frozen lake in the wild north is the same rusty warrior that I periodically see staring at me through tarnished eyes over the foggy city. I found it impossible to look at so much sky and so many stars and not feel small and unworthy. The height of urban society's cunning is having enough pollution to not have to face the night sky.

Also, as Brett pointed out, it felt ironic to wander onto a frozen lake to listen to the ice crack.

Job 38:31 Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion?

02-19-03 incomplete scrutiny

Wow, are my days ever full. I skip things I should do to do things I want to, then miss things I need to do to try things I can't do. I have class in a little while, I'll be off to discuss "The Man with the Movie Camera" in my City in Film class. It's a Soviet silent film from 1929. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Now for the class discussion. It's a snobby CLA class, so we'll sit around like the elite intellectuals we surely are and reduce Dziga Vertov's work to a bunch of sophisticated words and quaintly ambiguous political statements. It will be a smashing good time, I'm sure.

It is very easy to agonize over technical details in a way that darkens, even obliterates the native glow of the subject. I don't want to do that. I don't want to talk about a movie and forget the part that made my throat catch. I don't want to talk about a book until it's just a plot and some ideas. I don't want to spend so much time churning reluctantly through tedious math problems that I lose sight of the glorious perfection of it all. I don't want to measure rhyme and meter until my eyes see nothing else. I don't want to discuss a song until I forget the thrill of that particular chord. I don't want to debate "religion" until The Promise is merely an item in an outline of a religion. But I do. And I want to stop. I don't want to talk and write about my faith until I think I can express it in words.

Dt 4:9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

02-12-03 easily amused, i am.

We threw stuff off the bridge today. I don't know why that's so fun, watching a big chunk of plowed snow hit the frozen river and explode. It probably shouldn't be that cool. But it is.

02-11-03 blood washed linen

Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above...
-from Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

I've had that running through my head since thursday. It's some of the most beautifully stirring poetry I have ever heard. One of praise music's too-well-kept secrets.

<rant> ...venting a few thoughts on the university political climate.
I am certain that there are too many Americans who will tolerate blatant lies from an immoral president if the economy is good... who are willing to give up their right to keep and bear arms if they are promised safety... who write "peace, no war" in chalk on a college campus while ignoring the price that was paid for every peace ever known... who had their entire understanding of war spoon-fed to them by American histories, CNN, and Hollywood... who are only concerned with the people in the middle east if their little rebel wars raise gas prices... who have never lived in a war-torn nation... who grieve the 407,316 American deaths of WWII, debate the 58,655 American deaths of the Vietnam War, and hold, like a trophy of human rights, the 35,000,000 American lives taken by abortion.
</rant>

Ps 118:9 It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.

Of Ishmael:
Ge 16:12 He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."