from cincinnati

Jessie moved to Illinois but is in Cincinnati for the weekend, so I made a daring move and drove down here. The gas is leaking a bit more, but that may be due to the fact that I filled it up a bit more than usual. The mechanic said to keep it under half a tank but I filled it to 3/4, so I'm hoping that's why the gas seems to be leaking more. At least now I know my car can actually make the trip for when I come down at the beginning of next month. It's great to see all these guys again, I've missed them dearly. Last night a bunch of us--Blake, Amanda, Jessie, Tony, and Gambill--went down to Fountain Square and grabbed dinner at the Rock Bottom Brewery. Blake bought me a shot to celebrate my transient homecoming, and I got a drink called the Sexy Bex. I felt a bit tipsy so I stopped drinking and just focused on some delicious hummus wraps. Afterwards Blake, Amanda and I went and sat out on the square and watched the people and the fountain and we shared cigarettes and took pictures and told fun stories. 

This morning Mandy and I went to The Anchor and shared good conversation. We both got omelets with toast and coffee. Later we may be going to a park, and hopefully I'll have a good late lunch before heading back to Dayton (back to the ol' grindstone tomorrow, a ridiculous shift: 12-7:00, with my PDP afterwards). 

I really do miss Cincinnati. I know I've been nostalgic lately, and I'm not going to waste anymore time on here lamenting all the things I don't have in south Dayton. You know, the amazing parks and the fantastic breweries--"The Beer Sellar" being at the top of the list--as well as the great restaurants and the fun night scenes where we would walk around till 2:00 in the morning making fun of all the drunkards. Amanda and I had a nice forty-minute conversation the other day. If I don't get a promotion within the next 6-9 months, I'm going to try and transfer down to Cincinnati and share an apartment with her. It would be a dream come true.

Mandy says, "What are you writing over there, Clickety-Clack?"

I reply, "A blog post."

She says, "Oh my God, put me in it."

Here you go, Mandy.

a friday night

My Friday evening was spent thus: after work I deposited my check at the bank. I went and got my tire fixed so I can go down to Cincinnati at the end of the month. Discovered the gas leak is worse in my car. Oh well. Went by work to do some coffee tasting (Espresso Roast) and to work on my PDP. Watched a few television shows while eating dinner (Subway). Spent the rest of the evening reading N.T. Wright's "Climax of the Covenant" while sitting on the front porch with lit candles. It's 9:10 and I'm going to bed in a moment. But first: 

One of my biggest interests in theology is the history of theology (i.e. how we came about, historically, to believe the way we do about various things within theology). In reading Wright's exegesis of Romans 9-11, especially of verses 25-27, I learned a little bit and it made me happy. One of the most popular interpretations of the passage is that Paul is speaking of a last-minute wide-scale salvation of the Jews, probably at or around Jesus' "2nd Coming." Their salvation is based upon their ethnic heritage alone; in this way, God is faithful to his covenant with Abraham. Never-mind that Paul has said throughout Romans in particular, and elsewhere as well--such as 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, and Philippians--that covenant membership and, consequently, salvation come about only by grace through faith. There are all sorts of scholarly explanations for how this passage is even present in the Romans discourse, all acknowledging--with the exception of most lay-Christians--that there is a brutal contradiction with the rest of Paul's literature. Suffice it to say, I don't (as with most New Testament scholars) agree with this conclusion, and I believe that there is a manner of reading the text that does justice both to the text itself and to the coherence of Paul's thought (i.e. the text is about the salvation of 'all Israel' in referent to both Jews and Gentiles as a whole). The interesting thing to me is where the idea that this speaks of a last-minute widespread ingathering of Jews comes from. Apparently this perspective became widespread following the Holocaust, when Christians were faced with the horrors the Jews underwent, the evil which they suffered under the Nazi regime, and then to go on 'missions' to the Jews was to be viewed as antisemitic or at least anti-Judaism. Face-to-face with the gas chambers at Auschwitz and the bones littering ditches all over France and Germany, the 'two-covenant' theology became very popular: Jews are saved by virtue of their ethnic heritage; faith in Jesus is about God's way of saving gentiles alone. I'll be honest: this is a very attractive portrait, and it gives some semblance of comfort when we contemplate all the innocent Jews slain in the concentration camps. Nevertheless, this two-covenant theology is, I am convinced, wrong. It's just interesting, I think, to see how theological beliefs are born and how they spread. There's a little lesson for you.

october randomz

I talked to my little sister today. It's always good to talk to her, it's always the pinnacle of my day. I'm taking a mini-vacation at the beginning of November: going down to Cincinnati for three days to spend some koala-t time with quality friends. It's about two weeks away, two weeks in which I'll be trying to fix my car for the drive down, paying school loans, and basically just spending the evenings at the house. Most of my evenings are like this one: take-out sushi, an episode of "Bones", working out to Led Zeppelin, maybe studying some theology. It's really not at all that exciting, but I've learned that to be in a place where you can sit on the front porch without fear of bandits, to be in a place where you can sleep peacefully at night, is something 3/4 of the world longs for and doesn't experience. Am I blessed? Certainly so, in so many ways, and I pray God will continue showing this to me and guiding me in my life. "Trust in YHWH with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths." I've been reiterating this scripture to myself again and again, letting it burrow deep within me, hopefully to take root and blossom into a "life manifesto" of sorts. All too often I rely on my own understanding; all too often I acknowledge myself in all my ways, my own desires and dreams and ambitions and hopes and goals; the scripture itself is a call to a very different sort of life, a life of devotion to God and his kingdom above all else. "Come along with me," Jesus says, and I'm working to figure out what that looks like not just in "orthodoxy" but "orthoproxy"; in other words, not just in the realm of metaphysical theology but in teeth-to-the-dirt application. I've always been good at the former, not so much with the latter.

"In the days of my youth I was told what it means to be a man..." Led Zeppelin is playing in the background. I love that song, and I am reminded of King David's exhortation to his young son Solomon before he ascended the throne: "I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of YHWH your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statues, his commandments, his rules and his testimonies..." That's what it means to be a man. It's not about being legalistic, it's about being fully devoted to God. It's about being what God created mankind to be. It's what being a man is all about because that's what God designed man to be. Led Zeppelin may define being a man with loving a woman forever and ever (and that is quite commendable), but the real test of a man is this: "Is he devoted to God or not?" Anyways. Meandering tangent is over. "Good Days, Bad Days" is one of my favorite Zeppelin songs, and it's calling me to workout. Focus today: chest. Here's the sushi I had yesterday at Sima's with Carly and Jessica (we all shared; this one is the Spicy Playgirl Roll):

a sketch

Vocation. The thing about vocation is that you just know what you're supposed to do, who you're supposed to be and to become. The more I pray, the more I search, the more the word of God comes to me: "Prepare the Way." That is what God wants me to do: preach the gospel. Announce the king and, as his herald and emissary, call people to loyalty to the king. And while I know this, there's this fear: I'm timid. I'm not bold. I'm shy in many ways, often fearful of confrontation. I've led a disappointing life, one marked quite poignantly by failure. I work a minimum-wage job, I am often overwhelmed emotionally, I can be, at times, unstable. And yet here's God, inviting me--no, summoning me--to be a bold and fearless herald of his kingdom, to announce an unsettling proclamation, to call out false gods and pseudo-gods wherever they may be. But I'm timid, and I'm shy, I look like I'm twelve, and I often wonder if I've gotten this wrong--at least, I try to convince myself this isn't what God wants me to do, for a variety of reasons (fear being one of them)--but god is always there, reminding me: "You're mine, and I've chosen you to be a light in the darkness, a guide to the blind, a teacher of fools." But I feel swamped in darkness, blind as an eye-gouged Zedekiah, a fool in thought and praxis.

Calling. I vividly remember when God called me to this task. I was in prayer and worship alone when I heard what I can only describe as a semi-audible voice: "Prepare the Way." My heart stopped and the world slowed and I knew and still know: God had spoken to me. It was this which led me to C.C.U. I was determined to advance God's kingdom. I studied and I prayed and I led Bible studies and preached sermons and served as a leader in my church. People spoke often of how God would use me, how God spoke to them through me, encouraging and convicting and enlightening them. I was filled with an insurmountable passion, a fire in my gut, and like Jeremiah I cried out, "There is in my heart a burning fire in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot!" I fell in love with God and with Jesus and felt joy and peace and knew this is what God wanted me to do, that he was leading me to C.C.U. where I could receive training in the advance of his kingdom.

Disintegration. Depression overcame me my sophomore year of college, and I embraced in my weakness and despair all those classic escapism techniques: sex, drugs, and alcohol. I became a bitter and calloused person, void of any hope and life, a shell of what I had once been. I allowed the sin in my life to infect me to the bones, and I became, in a sense, dehumanized. I reached a cataclysmic low and, in a sense, repented. I stopped the performance of the sins but retained the corrupted heart. In February of this year, after months and months of refusing God's heed to fully and finally repent (in truth, while I stopped worshiping the false gods of sex and pleasure, I didn't turn to God but turned to worshiping the false gods of pride and fortune), God dealt me a deeply-wounding blow. It was a blow of wounding to bring about healing. He hurt me so that he could restore me. The very night all this happened, God spoke to me again: I wept, asking him, "Why would you let this happen to me if you love me?" and he replied, "I didn't let this happen to you. I made it happen to you because I love you." Having ignored all of God's pleadings with me to repent, God's declarations meant to bring me to my knees, he did what I refused to do on my own: he brought me to my knees, and not so that I could stay there, curling into a fetal position and whimpering about my life. Rather, he brought me to my knees so that he could lift me up again.

Repentance. I fled to a sanctuary and really began probing--in thought and prayer and study--what had happened. Eventually, after nearly two months of wrestling both with God and the intensifying pain of what happened in February, I knelt before God and repented. I turned from my false gods to him. And in a week, the pain of February vanished, completely gone, not even an inkling returning to visit me since then. It wasn't as if the pain faded, or even decreased into a mere trickle to try up. It just went away. One night I was in great pain over what happened, and the next day I went to bed and realized: I don't feel anything. It wasn't a fluke, it was an answer to prayer. The blow had been struck, I had been wounded, and when I repented, the healing began--the first step being the divine eradication of the emotional hell ensuing following the events in February.

Healing. The process of healing, a process that continues even now, is no pleasant thing. Just as a wound itches and burns as it heals, so it is--often, and for me--with spiritual healing. There's purging, inflammation, bruising. Scars form and peel off and the wound is opened again. But healing goes on, a healing down by the Spirit. My spiritual healing has involved much self-analyses and confessions, the splintering of pride and the shattering of dreams. It's involved the exposure of my corrupted heart, of the false gods I have worshiped and crucifying them in my mind even as they whisper in my heart. It's a brutal healing, to say the least; but it's a good healing. I am being developed into a stronger and better person, and not by my own doing, but by the power of the Spirit. I am experiencing peace and joy again.

Re:thinking. Amidst all of this, I have been rethinking everything: myself, my life, my world, and my God. Living for years in a state of ruined produced all sorts of flawed thinking and erroneous perceptions. The errors in my meta-narrative have been and are being exposed in the light of the gospel, and piece-by-piece, wing-by-wing, they are being dismantled. Rebuilding is taking place. The way I perceive God, the world, myself, and life itself is being built into a new shape. 

Arabia. And so I find myself being healed, rethinking everything, bathing in prayer and scripture, seeking at least a flimsy coherent framework for my thoughts and praxis. At the center of all this lies the wrestling with vocation, and in that is the wrestling with a certain promise of God delivered to me in December of 2006. This is my Arabia: I know, in my heart and mind, that which God has called me to; and I am seeking out how it will work out, what it will look like en-fleshed. I perceive this to be a critical part of my life. On the outside, it seems run-of-the-mill. Working full-time at Starbucks, paying my bills, going to bed early every night, juggling car troubles. But on the inside, there is a stormy sea with the promise of calm skies on the other side of restoration. 

Restoration. God wounded me so that he could heal me. And he heals me so that he can exalt me, lift me up, restore me. I believe that had I remained committed to God years ago, my life would look drastically different. God won't change the past, but he can remake the future. My vocation hasn't changed: "Prepare the Way." The promise of God is not null and void. Now, what restoration will look like the other side of Arabia, only God knows, and I'll simply have to find out. For now I am left with the call--"Announce the king and call his subjects to loyalty!"--and I am confident the Spirit will show me the way.

pumpkin spice, sushi, and repentance

At work I experimented with making some espresso cocktails, and I really found a winner: short pumpkin spice latte with one pack raw sugar, whipped cream with caramel drizzle and topped with cinnamon dolce and pumpkin spice sprinkles. It's pretty amazing. I'll probably be drinking one every day after work. In other news, I've decided to stop trying to "lose weight." Instead I'm just going to try and "bulk up." Yesterday I did 50 extended push-ups and my chest is killing me today. Today's workout involves 100 arm curls. I'm most concerned about my abs, chest, and arms; though because of the pudge that will never go away (even underweight I had pudge on my tummy), my abs aren't a big concern--you'd never be able to see them. Amanda was in town last night and she came by work this morning and she smoked a cigarette with me on my last ten-minute break, and she said she's going to the Cincinnati Halloween party dressed up like me, and I'm going to go as a turtle--as long as I don't work that evening. We'll see if I can work it out.

Dewenter will be here in a little bit. We're going to grill some chicken and I'm going to bake some potatoes. It'll be amazing. Tomorrow I am joining Carly and Jessica C. from work and we're going to grab some sushi from some sushi restaurant in Kettering(?). I love sushi and can't wait, and Carly and Jessica are really cool, so that's a plus, too.

I finished Chapter IX of "Re:framing Repentance." It's all about faith and how to understand (a) what it is and (b) why it's what God desires/demands of us. It's one of the longest chapters in the second third of the book--it's about twenty pages--but it's well-worth the space. I've defined faith in Jesus Christ as loyalty to Jesus Christ. This fits in with what "loving God" is all about--devotion/commitment/loyalty to him--and it also flows perfectly with repentance, which--as I define it--is the decision to turn from self-loyalty to loyalty to God/Jesus. Most other readings regarding the relationship between Faith and Repentance are pretty jagged; that is, it becomes a technical rock concert where it's hard to ascertain how the two fit together. This understanding of repentance and faith--and how they interconnect--is, I think, true to the biblical writings and the major themes of the New Testament. So much regarding Christianity, the Christian life, and the eschatological future and how it is tied in with faith & repentance is freed from the ambiguity inherent in understandings of faith/repentance which harp upon certain aspects, superimposing these aspects above all the rest, without seeking to synthesize the aspects within a broader paradigm. Bah I'm getting tired of writing about it all. I'm excited about the next chapter, though: "The Consequences of Repentance." Here's a picture I took while suffering the aftershocks of Chipotle after work:

the dayton days [36]

just plugging away

Monday. I finished N.T. Wright's "Justification" while sipping espresso on the back porch. Sarah came up to visit me for a while: Skyline Chili and chatting on the front porch while watching cold September rains. She told me Keith got in a bar fight and broke his hand and had a bottle smashed over his head. She left, and Dylan & Tyler came over. We went to the Mall for a bit and spent the evening playing Wii and hanging out on the front porch despite the cold.

Tuesday. It's strange: though I knew this day would come, as it did with Julie and Courtney, I refused to believe it. Amidst the situation, with all the emotions, there seemed to be no light, only darkness. And then glimmers of light began to appear, and then ribbons, and the darkness melted away. I laughed, I sang, I danced for joy. I enjoyed life once again. Dan Dyke told me a long time ago, "It's surprising what we can 'get over.'" His words brought me hope; and now his words have come true: I am completely over Sarah.

Wednesday. I was in a contemplative mood all day, spent most of the night just driving around, smoking cigarettes and drinking an iced decaf soy caramel macchiato. I miss all those drives in Cincinnati. My most frequent was the OH-50 turnaround, but sometimes I'd go down and drive around the stadiums where drug deals went down once 3 AM hit. Sometimes I'd go across the Brent-Spence and drive into Ludlow, KY and sit on the bleachers in the old baseball field and across the river and up the rise perched the lookout at Mount Echo. Other times I'd just get lost on purpose in the hills of northern Kentucky. I miss those drives. I miss, too, the drive into Eden Park and out Mount Adams and I'd always slow down by the Gazebo to see if the wailing ghost would show but she never did. I miss getting coffee at the Mariemont Starbucks and I miss the old stone church with the overgrown graveyard and I miss the Mount Adams overlook and my eggs and coffee at The Anchor, but mostly I miss my friends.

Thursday. A wedding party came through work today. It was happy but sad for me. Courtney got married this time last year. I've never loved anyone like her despite "meeting" several girls. I could've loved Mandy K. that way, and Sarah, but neither would have any of it. Carly saw the hurt in my eyes, patted me on the back. "Don't worry, Pal. You'll find someone."

Friday. I picked up Chipotle for lunch. The manager knew me from work, comes in all the time. "You look like a natural there, you really do!" he said. Apparently my forte is found behind an espresso machine. Jessica C., Asenath, and J.J. all commented on how skinny I look. Aunt Teri & Grandma came up; Great Aunt Ethel is in the hospital for some brain issues. Dylan & Tyler both came over and we smoked our pipes on the back porch. Tyler got a pipe today, and I gave one of my extras to Dylan. I'm keeping the Salvinelli. 

Saturday. Sarah & Keith are "back together." Last night he grabbed her phone and made several calls to guys in her address book, telling them he was going to kill them and put them in body-bags. One of them was her mom's friend, and he told Cindy about it and said Sarah was sobbing in the background. Cindy freaked out because she knows a girl who was dating a guy like Keith, and she ended up getting killed. Cindy called me, falling apart: "What's WRONG with her, Anthony?!" she wailed. It's tragic: Sarah may end up being the one in the body-bag. Ams went off on Sarah for what happened: "You're ruining your relationships with everyone who cares about you, your mom is sobbing because of what you're doing, and you won't change! You just keep fucking yourself over and over!" Ams wants me to move back down to Cincinnati at the end of her lease. "I need you here," she said. "We all miss you."

Sunday. I think my problem is self-confidence. I AM attractive. I AM cute. I need to stop "living in the past" and come to terms with reality. I'm a great, wonderful, attractive guy. Far better than most! And humble, too. I talked to Ams about my insecurities. "You look great, Anth. You're not a stick, but you'll never be: you're short and stocky. And that's not a bad thing! You look fit and healthy, absolutely NOT overweight. So be confident." I don't know why I'm so hard on myself for my pudge when I borderline salivate over it on women.

pipe club re:mixed

Yesterday Tyler bought a pipe and some pipe tobacco, and he and Dylan came over when I got off work. I gave Dylan my old pipe and broke out the Savinelli I received as a graduation gift from my good friend Matt Jobst. I tried the Irish Cream tobacco. We sat on the front porch in the blistering cold and smoked our pipes and laughed till we cried. Here is a picture of the three of us with our respective pipes (though you can't see Tyler's, on the right).

Aunt Teri & Grandma are in town. My great aunt Ethel has been in and out of the hospital, so they're staying here for a few days and traveling up to Springfield to see her each afternoon and evening. I have the day off (and tomorrow I start up another 5-day work week) and need to run some errands. I'm going to finish my PDP at work and then finish revising Chapter IX in "Re:framing Repentance," and after that who knows? I may be getting sushi with some friends from work but that's up in the air now. I need to get the tire on my car fixed, but I'll probably wait till my next day off to do that. The spare is holding up just fine (knock on wood). I'm enjoying this cold weather but wish there would've been that "transition" between the 90s and the 50s. It's like we just plunged straight into the first echoes of winter.