Engagement.

Just in case anyone still reads this, I got engaged to the love of my life last night. In December of 2010, I will marry my girlfriend of three and half years, Megan. I am more excited for this than anything else in my life!



-Dan

Sacred Spaces.

I want to talk about spaces. During my undergraduate career I took a course titled, "Writing Beyond Borders" and we talked about the spaces that we all create. Through this course I read such wonderful books as Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, Graceland by Chris Abani and the wonderful works of Meena Alexander. While that class mainly talked about how these writers "wrote" beyond and within the confines of borders (whether they be racially, culturally, geographically, etc.) one idea that stuck out to me in all that time was the idea of spaces. You can not have borders without spaces, and these spaces are created by us, both to house these borders and to fill them. While the rest of this post won't focus (much) on these novels, I felt it a good jumping off point for my idea on spaces.

As I stated before, we create these spaces that house and fill our borders. In The English Patient, the cave of swimmers became a sort of "sacred space;" a place consecrated in some way or another as different. In that particular novel, it was built around the protective care (and subsequent death) of one character by another (though not intentionally). In this case, the "sacred space" is created because of the death of a lover. It is "sacred" by means of being a place of life and death. We create similar spaces (think graveyards), but the kind I wish to talk about are developed on a separate path. The ones I wish to talk about are not consecrated based on something so convoluted; rather they are created as spaces away. While the cave of swimmers is also a place away, it is not a place that was actively sought out. It provided refuge, yet a grave. Thus the dichotomy of it being a sacred space. Like I said though, there are other means of creating these "places away."

One such place, in my own personal life, is located in Glenmere Park, here in Greeley. The park itself is one of the more sought after ones, both due to it's proximity to the UNC campus, but it's relative seclusion. The second is the reason I go there. It is close enough to walk to, yet enough removed so that the sounds of the city fade off into the distance. In Glenmere there is a bench, and it sits facing away from the roads, looking into the park. The view immediately in front is of a pound, with tall, honey brown reeds growing out of the water. There is a slight trickle as the water runs down a stone into a smaller pond, and fish are not uncommon to see swimming through the water. There are birds that nest in the towering trees over the pond and it all sounds so... alive.

I went to this bench the other night, which is where I came across this idea. The area smelled green, and after spending my day working with computers and espresso machines, driving around and staying in my basement apartment, I found the smell of fresh grass and clear water to be refreshing. I felt cleansed. It's this point that I fully realized why I have come to this exact spot over the past six years; it is my sacred space. It is my "away place" where I go to think, pray, be quiet, read, meditate. Write. It is the spot I have designated as "away" from my day to day grind. It, like the aforementioned cave, is also a place of death. It is a place I went to when I was recovering from my aunt's death. A place where I almost broke down thinking of my beloved grandparents who passed away recently. It is a place where I feel like I can be open. A consecrated place.

We erect borders to give us space and definition. As many know though, those borders are quickly disappearing, as the world becomes more and more global. It is this very reason that I think this type of "sacred space" should be sought after. We need areas where we create our own borders, deem it "sacred" by the means in which these places allow us to escape. While I may not have made a strong connection with the literature I began talking about, I still see some small connection between the two. My apologies if I did not quite read into the work what I should have, I've been out of the game awhile. Peace.

Poetry; Ode to a Coffee Bean

A poem I wrote for a class. We were supposed to write something that described a "love" of ours. I decided to write one on coffee. Yes, terribly nerdy, but I thought this might be a good, light post to contrast my previous serious one.

Ode to a Coffee Bean

The smells of sunrise fly into my head
The black, earthy smell of liquid joy
Rouse me from the sleep of engulfing beds
That first sip is as to a child on Christmas,
Getting her favorite toy.
The dark, smooth coating given to the mug
Opens a portal into the secret word
Where one bean from a stately tree hung,
Picked, looked at with a careful eye, in fingers twirled
Chosen to be my morning comfort
From halfway across the globe.
Now you sit, among compatriots ground, covered
With scalding liquid to extract your essence
For me to ingest, to share, to connect as lover
To see the conjoined life we lead, you needing me
To unlock your potential, me needing you to unlock my day.




-Daniel J. Adkins; 2008

Memorium

It's been roughly a year, give or take, since I had to experience three funerals in a row. Two of which were for beloved grandparents, one for my girlfriend's grandfather. To be quite honest, the whole time was utter hell. There was nothing good about the experience, even if all three had the foreboding shadow cast upon the last few months. All three lived full lives, some longer than others. All three left behind families that loved and cared about them deeply. All three, are remembered fondly and while greatly missed, are known to be in better places than they were at the end of their earth bound existence. There was some closure to their lives, too. Grown children, on their own. Grandchildren growing up and becoming adults; the anathema to death. Where there is death, life continues.

But suicide is a different matter. The recent introduction of suicide into my personal sphere of life has brought some new meditations and questions on death. Here was an individual who had nothing apparently wrong. Someone who was, by all accounts, happy and fulfilled in this life. Obviously, this individual was not. Before I continue, I would like to note that this was not someone I knew personally, having only met once or twice. Those times though would not have lead me to think that a little less than a year later that person would be intentionally gone from this existence. It's a curious thing really, that someone would intentionally remove themselves from this life. There was thought, motive, action. Planning. Yet, there is no way to know what brought this on. There never will be.

My grandfather passed because of cancer. My grandmother, old age. Her body simply gave out. There really is no other way to explain it. She lived 95 years and I guess her soul and body decided that was enough time. My grandfather was "taken" by disease. However, even if he had lasted much longer, his body was so ravaged, his 82 year old frame would not have supported him anyway. A twenty something individual taking their own life, with no apparent inner turmoil to cause it? This is where death truly stings.

We can legitimize an elderly death, or one by disease. It wasn't the persons fault, they succumbed to natural forces of the universe. Suicide takes that away. That comfort, that meaning is gone. The death hangs too, like a thick fog, engulfing everything in muted tones, obscuring what should be good foresight. Yet, life continues.

Life and death are intimately connected, so much so that they are nearly one and the same. Life feeds on life. Carnivorous or not, all things we consume are "alive" and all of them die. From before we are conceived by the meeting of our genetic raw data, death is there. Millions of potential pieces of us "die" in the struggle to create us. Women, before the advent of modern medicine, could very well die in child birth. Truth be told, this is still more the case in the majority of the earth. We are truly spoiled in the West.

When a loved one dies, we all must find a way to continue. This is the harshness and sweetness of death; we must continue on without a valuable part of ourselves, yet we are still able to continue. Graveyards are fascinating to me. The person buried there won't give one rip about the plot of land or the headstone. It's all for us. To remember them and to give us hope to soldier on. This should make life all the more beautiful to us. It should cause us to take chances, laugh loudly and heartily, and love without reservation. We don't though.

We get wrapped up in our own lives. Paying bills, raising children, feeding our bodies, the everyday realities of life ad nauseum. Then again, maybe we should just find joy in these realities. Maybe this is where we should find our joy. I could also be blowing smoke out of my ass. That's more the case I think. I'm not going to pretend to understand any of what I've read, or have any answers. A simple meditation on that facet of life that is constantly engaged in the ending of it.

April is national poetry month... and I'm going to post about it again!

First off, I suck at this blog thing. I don't know why, but I don't see myself as having interesting enough content for an all the time thing. I will post, just sporadically (for the 5 of you following anyway).

April is National Poetry Month and as one of my favorite art forms, I plan to engage in this celebration of the written, rhythmic word. To start off, here is another poem I wrote. This came from a class I took where I had to take the title of a poem, not read said poem, and then write my own based only on the title. Here it goes! Happy April!

Only One of My Deaths

Walk down the cereal path and you’ll notice
A curious thing,
The sugar cane smiles brightly, cheerfully,
and resides on equal footing with
The smallest ones.

Happy go lucky creatures dance in
Suspended prose
Grinning eternally , saying to all,
“Come run with me through the syrup fields with
High fructose corn bellies.”

I, as it goes, am immune to this
Siren song, rather my hand
Clutches onto all bran, hydrogenated, iron weighted
Damn near, 100% system maintaining
Rabbit food.

-Daniel J. Adkins; 2008

Please sir, I'd like another.

This blog may come down to being little more than an excuse to complain, but I really dislike my job. Actually, let me rephrase that; I really dislike aspects of my job. I work in retail and a particularly odd kind of retail. On any given day I will find myself selling cigars, brewing coffee, making lattes, baking bread, stocking books/magazines, making sandwiches... you get the point. It's not any of the specific work that gets me down. All lines of work have the tedious aspect that is required to keep said business/employer/whatever going. It's also (most of the time) not the customers that bother me. Rather, it's the realization (or continuous realization) that retail doesn't care about you. As an employee, you are easily replaceable. This element of capitalism is necessary to it's survival; money has no feelings and values so should we expect those invested in the pursuit of such to have any? This is not a diatribe against gaining comfortable living means or buying fun stuff, it is simply a reality of the situation.

I was looking at some customers in line while I was working on something the other day and this thought came into my head; I grew up hearing that everyone was special and, especially coming from a Christian upbringing, that there was something significant and special I can and am meant to do. God had a plan for me, and my gifts and talents could allow me to become anything I wanted. Looking at the people standing in line, I realized how fleeting that sort of thinking is. I imagined all the customers waiting for me working jobs fairly similar to mine. Low pay, long hours, lots of physically demanding work (in one capacity or another) and I imagined them hearing the same things I heard growing up. Then I imagined them feeling beaten down in some fashion because they realized that only 1 out of a couple million ever get a book published. Only a select few see the art, music, karate, whatever classes they take as children turn into something when they get older. We all have to "settle" at some point. This is what I imagined the people in line feeling, because this is what I feel.

With all this said, I don't want to leave on a hopeless note. While the reality of our society and economic model encourages complacency and settling, there is one thing that we have not had taken from us yet. I may make coffee for a living instead of being a famous writer or missionary or something to look up to, but I do have my thoughts. I have my freedom to express my views and this is not limited to a constitutional model. It is inherit in my being as a reasoning human. I can look at a line of people who only want me to make a sandwich for them so they can get back to their lame, shitty job in half an hour and realize how much it says about society. How much it says about myself. Realize that I can express those thoughts via blog on the internet and if that right were taken from me I can still express it on paper, to a loved one, to any one who will listen. So, as I stare another day in face, another day filled with sandwiches, espresso, books and impatient employers and customers, I know that I'm not defeated if I have "settled" for a pedestrian job, because I can think and speak freely and am actively aware of that. It might make all the difference.

A poem.

I have finally decided on the direction I want to take this blog. The things I am presently interested in, and have been for sometime, are literature, society and spirituality. Therefore, that is the direction I am now going to take this blog. I will be posting a few times a week until I can get myself back up to speed on posting. To start things off, I would like to post a poem I wrote for your Sunday afternoon enjoyment. :)

A Steelworker Finds St. Louis Not So Pleasant

Thirteen, the day I began
To belt steel into steel to the tune
Of a Southern Man. My wages stoked
The fire of my mother’s stew
And the threads of the stitches on my
Sibling’s garments.

Nineteen, the day I began
To coat garish wooden boxes
With latex, and oil and stain.
With hues of green, purple, grey
And clothed my siblings the same.

Twenty-five, the day I began
To see the world through hops
Stained lenses, from the planks of floors
To the cool black of pavement, on streets.
My siblings repeated, every line of my
Coarse, brown breath, verbatim.

Forty-two, the day I began
To accept my mother’s words,
“Shades of your father, all of you,”
Echoed from the bottom of our shared
Cocktail glass. My siblings did the same.

Sixty-seven, the day I began
My career as a brown beard,
Much to the chagrin of my siblings,
Our mother needed the company.
Or so I told the smoking pepper-box.

-Daniel J. Adkins; 2008

It's time to post again.

And that's the size of it. I want to post again and I'm not sure if it will be on here or somewhere else. It most likely will be on a blogger server, but I don't know if I will continue this "Proto Merkaba blog." Which reminds me, I never, in the three years I consistently posted on here, explained the meaning of that name. I think that's a good place to start.

There are two different explanations for the name. The main one is probably the most damaging to any sort of "cool" image I may project. However, I am not going to say that first. Fooled ya, didn't I? No, first I am going dissect the two words themselves and give you a "better" explanation. "Proto" is a prefix denoting "first" or "foremost," used commonly in chemical terminology. So to attach "proto" to something is to say that the following word is the "original" or "foremost" of that something. "Merkaba" is a bastardized spelling of the name for the "spirit vessel" or "Chariot of God" referred to in Ezekiel 1:4-26. It should follow then that a logical interpretation of the two words in succession of each other would read as such; "proto merkaba" can be read as the "first spirit vessel." This is the way in which I have interpreted it for the most part. I like the way it sounds, and it gets me thinking. At the start of this blog I ascribed some arbitrary meaning to the phrase "first spirit vessel" that related to Jesus Christ. Yes, that is very "mystic" and some might say "emergent" of me to call Christ the "first spirit vessel" but it makes some sense. If Christ is the first and the last, being one with the Holy Spirit, but also housing it as the human, earthly "vessel" He was for 33 years, then it isn't too hard of a stretch. On a more recent reflection for the title of the blog, it seems very arbitrary in a literal sense. I'm not sure if I totally like it, but it seems to get people thinking and that is a reason that I started this blog that I hope to continue.

Now, the main reason why this name appears as it does. I would like to say the lengthy paragraph I just typed out is the main reason the title exists, but it is only a secondary one. Truthfully, this is where I got the name from. Nerd city, bitches.

-Dan

Swim in it

We do not live in an indifferent universe that does not care whether we sink or swim in the ocean. Rather, the spirit of God compels us to swim and to swim with it's strength.

This is an idea that I find most interesting. I look around at the world, at my present state of being, the situations in which I have lived for the past 12+ months, and I often find it comforting to see it all as an indifferent, "that's just life," philosophy. I find it fleeting too. Unsatisfactory. The engine of creation, the spirit of God, the "Holy Ghost," wishes for me to draw on that power of creation, instilled by God, to "swim" in the "ocean." To "trudgen" through the deep blue of existence. Through lulls and surges.

What awaits on the other side of the expanse of the ocean though? Is it paradise? More of the same? Contentment? Is the act of getting to the other side more important than what's there? Can I care enough to give it a try? The unknown depths are frightening things.

25 Reasons why the place you live at sucks

1. Upon moving in, you find that the "new fridge" you were supposed to get contains three colors on the inside; white, green and poo brown.
2. You proceed to take 75 pictures of your one bedroom apartment, three of which are of the wasps nest hanging from your balcony.
3. The hot water faucet in your bathroom sink doesn't work (yes, there are two separate faucets in the sink).
4. The bedroom window is rotted and falling off leaking heat and letting bugs in.
5. The fix for said window is glue and a lot of it.
6. The glue is also the fix for the leaky bathtub.
7. There is a drainage ditch behind your house that people fish in. Yes, people fish in the drainage ditch.
8. People also make their dogs fetch sticks from the drainage ditch.
9. Before said drainage ditch fills with water, the city sets the ditch on fire to burn up the trash and dead leaves.
10. Your neighbors fight. A lot.
11. You can hear every word of the fights because the walls are roughly three feet thick and most likely hallow.
12. You get sick from the not cleaned carpets of your apartment and the various forms of smoke that emanate through the vents from your neighbors apartments within the first month.
13. Your house is located between a laundromat and a Mexican food restaurant.
14. There is a pack of feral cats who live behind your house.
15. Said cats don't leave because someone keeps feeding them Chinese food.
16. You notice one of your neighbors with a newly bandaged wrist after the fight you heard the following morning.
17. You wake up at 6:30 every morning to either a garbage truck, police siren, fire truck someone yelling or all four.
18. Even though your apartment is on the top story, there is still a weird slope to the floor.
19. You have more closet space than bedroom space.
20. The ceiling in the living room slopes, but no other ceilings do.
21. Your stove and oven knobs have no numbers on them causing you to either burn or undercook everything.
22. Even with all the windows open (only one of which contains a screen), your apartment still feels like you are living on the inside of oven.
23. Another pack of feral cats lives in your hallway at night.
24. There is a CO2 detector sitting on the counter in your kitchen with the battery removed that you notice upon move in.
25. People don't believe you when you tell them you live between a laundromat and mexican food restaurant and always remark, "You really do live between a restaurant and a laundromat!" because that's something you'd lie about.

God, I can't wait to move.

Changes coming

This blog is retarded. Wait, I'm sorry. That's an offensive word. Ok, let's try again. This blog is pointless. Originally started as a vehicle to let me write and speak my thoughts after a very stupid situation and I think for the most part I've been able to do that. However, three years is quite some time and my lack of enthusiasm for this blog lately has only exacerbated my feelings of pointlessness. I imagine I'll still keep it up if there is anything at all I want to talk about, but I get better responses on facebook than I do here. So, pretty soon this blog site will become another graveyard to my attempts of being legitimate on the internet.

However, with this realization of mine, I also recognized that I have written about music more than anything lately and with recent attempts at not getting any work writing about music on the interwebs, a friend and myself have decided to start a metal blog site similar in scope (if not style) to metalsucks and metalinjection. So, pretty soon I'll post a link and you all can start reading my thoughts and reviews on metal music in an appropriate venue. Until that time, keep checking, I might get fired and have to write about it.

-Dan

Your Sunday dose of wandering internet fingers

Sunday is the day of rest (except for us heathens who decide to tell our bosses that we can work on this holiest of holy days) and as such there are no new thoughts to express. Except that I found a video of Skunk Anansie performing live and it made me think of this video. So good!

Sevendust-Licking Cream (feat. Skin from Skunk Anansie)


Also, my girlfriends dog got shaved and now looks like a sheep. So here is a herd of sheep for you all to enjoy. Especially you heathens. Happy Sunday!

Go here so I don't have to resize.

Turns out I was wrong

Go to Alice in Chains website and download a brand new track from AIC. Or if you so chose, I guess you can purchase said track, "A Looking in View" from iTunes, Amazon, etc. I personally chose the free way. So what was I wrong on? Well, I thought due to the teaser trailers the band released, it would be a new video. Wrong, it's a new single. So how does it stack up? Read on.

It is, first off, really heavy. Not in that death metal, speed/trash heavy but in a ominous, minor chord, groove heavy. Just like "We Die Young" off of Facelift the track starts off as a straight up heavy handed affair. It's kind of a menacing track, but it no where doesn't sound like AIC. It stacks up remarkably well. Of course that should be expected, as except for the late Layne Staley not being present it's the same band that's been together since 1993. The big question, how does William DuVall stack up with Layne Staley?

DuVall is no replacement. He sounds remotely nothing like Staley and I think this works in the bands favor. There have been dozens of bands that have attempted to recreate Staley's vocals and be the AIC replacement, and failed miserbly (I'm looking at you Godsmack and Staind) and I think that the refromed AIC is better off finding someone who can both hold his own and harmonize with Cantrell, which they have found in DuVall. The man isn't quite as powering of a voice as Staley was, but he fits and most importantly doesn't drag the song or the band down. All AIC fans can breathe easy now, as there is no horrendous vocalist to tarnish the band's legacy.

I was half expecting some sort of solo from Cantrell in the song, but considering half the band's previous material didn't contain solos, I don't know what I was thinking. I am satisfied with the song and as someone who was literally forced by my birth and when I got into heavy music to miss out on AIC's heyday finds the song refreshing. Let's face it, modern hard rock is pretty banal and Alice In Chains releasing a straight up bruiser/mind trip of an excellent return record could be a godsend. On the other hand, it simply could be seen as another old band getting together again. I mean, let's face it, BrokenCYDE is a far cry from the days of grunge and alt-metal and Nickelback, for some unholy reason, continue to be popular. Then again, the Creed renuion is not pulling them in like they used to, so maybe there is hope.

It is a sad day

When this debuts at #83 on the Billboard charts. Wait a second, why should I be sad about that? I wrote off the radio and pop music years ago! Still, it's fun to hate.

Brokencyde- Booty call feat. E-40


On another note, the dudes in the reformed, Layne Staley-less Alice in Chains keep posting trailer videos for their new album, Black Gives Way to Blue. Here's the latest trailer.



The visuals are the same as the last video, but good God almighty does that sound heavy! Oh, and just for the record, the full video that this teaser is promoting, A Looking in View, comes out... TOMORROW!! The album drops September 29.

Now this is what a music video should be!

Here's the crazy thing, I was feeling a little underwhelmed by a lot of what's "up and coming" in metal for awhile there. Then I re-examined Gojira and found them to be even more amazing than I originally thought. Then, I began hearing things about this band called Hacride. So I did a little searching and OH MY FREAKIN' GOD!!! Not quite up to Gojira status, but still some of the more inventive and interesting and utterly crushing metal I've heard as of late. Both bands have pretty awesome music videos and, guess what, they are both French bands. Yes, French metal bands. Good French metal bands. I think I need to re-examine my former dislike for these folk. On another note, the French (and most of Europe for that matter) don't have the same problems with the human body that we do, i.e. there's boobs in these videos. Enjoy!

Hacride- Perturbed


Gojira- To Sirius


Gojira- Vacuity


Why must I be short on cash right as I'm finding music I actually deem worthy to buy>!?

In all due respect

I would like to state that I feel deeply for the families and friends of Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon. All three of these near legendary entertainers passed away within the last couple of days (McMahon on the 23rd, Fawcett and Jackson yesterday, the 25th). I have no doubt the loved ones and those who loved these three are mourning deeply. So my condolences are given. With that said, I think that there are some things to keep in mind regarding at least one of these individuals, one Mr. Michael Jackson.

I, unlike what seems to be a strange amount of people in my generation (I'm 24), did not "grow up" on Michael Jackson. My first memories of the "King of Pop" have absolutely nothing to do with his music, rather it being his voice over appearance on The Simpsons. I guess you can throw up the video premiere of "Black or White" too but outside of those instances I have no memories of MJ other than as a weird, psychologically unstable and maladjusted pedophile. He was, for most of my life a strange, scary, weird individual who at one time was aligned with some of the greatest pop songwriters out there. I have no doubt that MJ was a very kind and decent person to those he loved and early on in his life he was most likely a pretty average individual. For whatever reasons though, whether it be some genetic predisposition or the early spot light or his own father being not much of a father, Jackson went nuts. It is entirely normal for people to view only the positives of a person after they die, it is one of the coping mechanisms we humans use to deal with the absence of someone in our physical lives. Having recently lost two close family members, I understand this very well. So, please, if you have a love for the man's music and that part of his legacy, by all means celebrate it! He made a lot of people happy and no doubt inspired countless musicians. However, I don't think we can forget the fact that he did some really reprehensible things and that if he were not the "King of Pop" and just some other once black, now white, waifish child molester we'd be celebrating his death. One more perv gone.

I don't think he should be held up to the revisionist history of being blameless and I also don't think he should be seen as a total creep with no redeeming values. He was a human being like all of us and his good and bad should be taken as such. He was crazy but a fantastic entertainer who gave millions a bright spot in their lives. I know how much the music I love affects me, so I won't dare take that away from those who cherish his music. Long story short, he ain't no saint, but he ain't no demon and his good should be remembered equally with his bad.

Ladies and gentlemen... get your haterade ready!

A preface; I use wikipedia a lot in this post. Sorry. Bad English major. I also happen to use bad grammar. Bad, bad English major. I would also like to mention that while I did read everything on the websites I link to, I very well could have misread or missed something. So, if you all find something that makes me look like a complete tool, please feel free to point it out. Just try and do it nicely instead of like anonymous poster who felt it was his/her right to tell me I'm an idiot. I already knew that, so please be kind. Now...

I'm gonna piss everyone off. Yep. Everyone. I'm gonna write about religion. Not just any religion though, no sir. I'm gonna write about Christianity, but not just any old Christianity, I am gonna write about... get ready for it... SPIRIT FILLED CHRISTIANITY!!! Yep, here I go writing about the Apostolics, Charismatics, and everyone's favorite evidence of "yep, Christians are crazy, look at them babble!" For those of you who are wondering what a spirit filled Christian is (as I wanted a few more denominations to mention) here is a Wiki-Answer to the question 'What is a spirit-filled Christian?"; A spirit filled christian is a person who has accepted the Lord as their savior they then are filled with the holy spirit. Thanks for clearing that up. I'm glad I now know absolutely nothing about their theology, lifestyle, services, worldwide impact, etc. etc. Really though, I can sum up what this whole thing is for you, as good as any wiki answer can.

The term "spirit-filled Christianity" is something that I have recently had some experience with, but for most of my life I knew it as Pentecostalism or Charismatic Christianity. My first one on one experience was with a friend I had my freshman year of high school who assured me that the evidence of being filled with the holy spirit was speaking in tongues. This didn't sit well with my 15 year old mind, which more or less took him as saying, "you aren't a true Christian because you don't do x." This has been my view of the whole issue for sometime. It still is. I have always viewed this particular "manifestation" of the spirit serving one purpose in the early church, if you are going to follow the Bible as your authority on the matter. It was meant to speak the words of Christ to people in their own language, i.e. no translator. The original Greek phrases used to describe the act of speaking in tongues are the root words of glossa and dialektos which mean, respectively, "tongue" and "language." They are used synonymously and can therefore be seen as the disciples speaking in known languages to the crowd they were speaking to (check out Acts 2:7-8). It was a means to spread the word of God, not a means to communicate to God. That was the gift of no more intercessor, i.e., no more rabbi. The important element in the Pentecost was to allow the direct interaction of everyone with God through prayer, not simply so a select few "chosen ones" who have the "manifestation of the Spirit" can.

There is more though. Did you know that studies have show a heightened sense of emotion that comes with "speaking in tongues?" By the way, from here on out I will simply refer to it by the scientific term of glossolalia, which is the combination of Greek words glossa"tongue,language" and lalein"to talk" Yep, that's right, all those intense moments you see on t.v. where people are crying, babbling, and raising their arms are emotionally charged. It's very easy to follow a crowd when the emotions run high. Think about it in terms of music concerts. How charged up and emotional can you get seeing your favorite band play. Your brain is a delicate instrument and when something gets too much activity and is too focused upon one thing, like emotions, the rest of your brain functions suffer. However, this emotional element does not discount it altogether as there is evidence that glossolalia is still similar to human speech. It has rhythm, intonation and syllables. However, there is no structure, coherence, or intentional methodology associated with forming glossolalia. In essence, it appears close enough to human speech to be able to be picked up, but not close enough to be understood.

So why does this happen? That, I don't know. I'm on the fence. On the one hand, if God is as all powerful as he is supposed to be, then why not? But then why would God chose such an esoteric and foreign way to communicate with his children? If glossolalia is simply some sort of learned, emotional, trance-hypnosis babble, the why can seemingly normal people suddenly become infatuated with it? Are we all open to being "hypnotized" by incredibly emotional experiences? Or, on a far out limb, could this whole movement of "spirit-filled Christianity" be one huge ploy by the dark spiritual forces of this world to lead the faithful astray? Could the second largest movement in Christianity today be one big, misleading, emotional fraud? Hey, at least I'm seriously considering spiritual things again.

Told you I wasn't going to make any friends.

P.S. Read more Here and here.
P.S.S. This is not meant, in anyway shape or form to be the final authority on the matter. I plan to read far more and talk to more individuals about this, including ones who claim that glossolalia is for real and they participate in it. Like everything on this blog, it's something that sparked my interest and I wanted to see if anyone else's interest was sparked.

The most exciting news I've heard all day.

Here was the top story on my news feed this morning.
Woman gets most boring story nod of the month!

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I think we all should start using this device.



I promise to have something more serious up in the next week here. I'm simply waiting for time to sit down and write it. I have tomorrow off and plan on doing ab-so-freakin'-lutley nada. Except clean. Maybe.

Joy and comfort,
-D

In which Faith No More eased the pain

To whit;

This is not metal.
Attack! Attack! -"Stick Stickly"


For all requests of your 3:34 seconds of life back, give me a comment. I'll gladly give it back to you. Metal Sucks however is not so kind.

Now that the first sign of the apocalypse is done, watch something GOOD!

Faith No More -"Midlife Crisis"


Panckaes,
-D

In which we will sanction North Korea

It appears that tensions between the U.S. and North Korea will not get any better anytime soon. In a recent Reuters article we see that the U.S. is in talks with South Korea about financial sanctions against North Korea. It appears as if the Obama administration is doing exactly what it was meant to do, be a prettier version of a Bush administration. I am no political guru and I certainly don't have time to visit every news site out there, but what I have noticed appearing recently in Obama is a strong desire to make friends and be liked. His first 100 days seemed to be filled with bill after bill being signed and the start of an economic stimulus package. However, the shit stained reality is hitting and it seems that most of his promises will go unfulfilled. We might look better to the world, but we are still having the same issues. Bolstering of forces in a war (this time Afghanistan), a prison not being closed, jobless rate at it's highest, etc. And in all honesty, I'm mostly pissed that we are still sanctioning another country. Really, all this does is reaffirm that we are a self interested empire trying to keep a lesser country from gaining a destructive advantage. I don't particularly want N. Korea to have nukes, but I don't want to piss them off more and make them hate us further. All that's going to do is make them nuke the U.S. first chance they get.

I guess this means the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade is getting it's wish. Oh wait, Obama's the communist. I forget.

Fuck politics.