|
| I only have a moment to post, but I wanted to ask you all for prayers. Hopefully I will be able to post more details later.....but I think it is all happening....all the fox stuff...the dreams...the wolves...liberalism.....all of it is coming together and falling into place into what is shaping up to be the start of a very intense, all out war. Please pray for me in this!
mood: most excellent and ready for battle
| | |
| Greetings all! I hope you are all doing well. It's been a long time again since my last update, and, as usual, lots of things have changed since then. Just know that while the past month was rough in a couple aspects, including college stress, I've adapted well and shifting some things and everything has been going great, especially over the past week or two. However, I am not blogging tonight to talk about me....or foxes (a shocker, I know!), or anything that I have ever really discussed on this blog before. Instead, I am going to blog about politics (go ahead and groan...I know...). But seriously...my history class this semester has I think been a contributing factor in my recent obsession with the political process, particularly the presidential races going on.
I think one thing that has really gotten me more interested was my history professor telling us about how important politics were to people in the nineteenth century. Politics dominated their social lives...parties, picnics, and other social gatherings were centered around politics. People then cared....people don't seem to care about getting involved or even informed anymore....however, they sure like to complain! So that is my first plea to you, regardless of your political party....your background....regardless of anything. Take some time and get informed....and not just on one side, but both sides. Find out what the other guys are saying. I am (as you could probably guess) very conservative...but I spent some time today to listen to liberal talk radio. It didn't kill me...I am still here alive and well! My main question is why not get involved? The elections, the presidential ones especially, DIRECTLY IMPACT YOUR LIFE!!!! SO GET INVOLVED and actually THINK about who you want for president instead of simply voting for who the media portrays as the top candidate...because I have news for you....the media is slanted and biased! Alrighty....now that I am done with that little rant....one to another one of sorts....
This one is for my conservative/Republican blog readers, as well as anyone on the fence with their political ideals.
John McCain. He is, in case you haven't heard, the Republican nomination for President. However, there are a quite a few people, conservatives especially, who are not particularly pleased with this. The other day, I got an email with a link to site selling stickers that....well, I guess they are for McCain....but they also kind of aren't. Take a look (and click the image to visit the site that is selling the stickers).:
At first, I laughed at the sticker and was like "I might have to get one!" But....then it got me thinking about the deeper issue at hand....and my thoughts shifted....here is my response to that sticker now: Yes...you do have to! And furthermore, you should not only vote for him, but you should enthusiastically support him as well! This kind of sticker, and this is not meant to bash the maker of this sticker or tell people not to get it, but this kind of sticker isn't really going to help the conservative cause at all. In fact, to the fence-riders, those who haven't made up their mind...all this sticker says is that we don't even like our candidate...and that will just send them right to the other side! Furthermore, you are telling other conservatives that maybe McCain isn't worth voting for, and they may not vote or go for a third party candidate.
On third party candidates...I urge you NOT to vote for one, but to instead vote for McCain. Perhaps the third party candidate may match up better with your personal beliefs on 1 or 2 issues, but, like it or not, America is a bicameral system...always has been, will likely always remain that way. A third party candidate simply can not and will not get enough votes to win a presidential election. However, third party candidates ARE a major player in elections. Look at the Election of 2000.....so close of a race that it is still a hotly debated issue. Bush got elected...you can't change history, so get over it if you are upset about it. But anyway, Bush would have not even forced a controversy about that election had it not been for third party candidate Ralph Nadar. Nadar effectively took votes from Gore because some people didn't see Gore as their dream candidate, so they voted elsewhere for a person who had no chance but was similar in many ways and effectively lost their party the election. I have heard murmurs among conservatives about voting for a third party candidate, or even not voting at all. I tell you this will accomplish nothing for you but putting in power people who are radically different from your beliefs and morals! Don't make the same "mistake" (or blessing from my point of view) that the democrats made!
Back to McCain now...he is our nominee...and just like I told anyone who is upset about the Election of 2000, its done...its history...you can't change it, so get over it! Look at the other side. Lets start with Obama. He promises change....what kind of change? I will tell you what kind of change: bigger government...higher taxes...less personal control over your own life...less respect for life, family and the Christian principles we were founded on. We are in a war with Islamic Jihadists whether we like it or not. (And don't tell me Islam is a peaceful religion when they are responsible for over 10,000 terrorist attacks worldwide in the past 6 years alone!) Do his 4 years in the senate make him qualified to deal with that threat? Now let us take Mrs. Clinton. She claims to have experience since she was the First Lacy while Bill Clinton was president. Mike Huckabee had a GREAT response to that. He said that is like him saying HE had experience in child-birth since he was in the delivery room when his wife gave birth....which of course is a ridiculous claim! Simply being in the White House doesn't make her qualified. In fact...she doesn't have much more qualifications than Obama...not to mention her extremely liberal anti-marriage, anti-life, anti- everything Christian politics....and this is just scratching the surface on these two....
So there you have it. Look at the other side of the street...Look at Clinton. Look at Obama. Is THAT what you want leading your nation? No...McCain isn't the perfect candidate....has there ever been a perfect candidate or a perfect president? No! But McCain will protect us from Islamic terrorists who want nothing more than to see an Islamic world empire...he will lower taxes...he will make the national government less involved in our personal lives. He is BY FAR the best choice for president that we have and deserves every bit of your support!
So...to wrap up.....Yes...you do have to vote for McCain...so put a smile on your face, thank God that we have the right to vote...for all the freedoms we take for granted...and thank Him especially for giving us a candidate who is a Christian and will work to preserve and improve our way of life in the next four (or eight!) years! Get out there..support him...get others to support him...and perhaps most importantly, pray for him!God bless!
| | |
| Wow...I didn't think I would be updating so soon...but then again, I had an awesome dream last night that I see as directly relating to yesterday's post, so I thought I would share it with you all!
Ok...its important to note that last night, I went to bed in one of my "thinking" moods...I was thinking mostly about the forum and all the work I got done on it last night...that led me to once more look seriously at the role of foxes in my life. When something is that important to you, I think its important to take a look at it every so often and see how it is effecting you and make sure its not becoming more important than other things (like God!) So I looked at what foxes were leading me to...and I liked what I saw...since I started focusing on being a "fox for God," I have grown so much in my faith come so much closer to God because of foxes...I quickly determined that yes...they were still from God and good. You will see why this important at the end....so remember it! 
Ok....the dream! It started with me next to a man-made waterway...like a small canal (probably more like an irrigation channel)...anyways, I was walking away from this canal into some woods and up a slight hill. Of course, my main thought and hope was finding a fox in the woods. I saw a couple deer...a rabbit or two...and they just scurried away like any normal animal would do. I took a couple more step and guess what! There was a fox laying down, head on its tail, looking at me. I think (not sure) that I spoke to it, giving it a greeting of some sorts or another. The fox proceeded to get up, come over to me, jump all around me and lick my face like it was a dog saying hello to its owner. That part of the dream was simply put....awesome.
The dream didn't end there...and in fact, the important parts are in this second half. After properly "greeting" me (if that is what you call it lol), the fox started to go back down the path. Now...you know how in dreams you sometimes just know something as a fact and you know it is true for no real reason? Well...in this dream, I knew that God had sent me this fox and that this fox was leading me to my greater, final mission. (I forgot to mention yesterday that I do not think the forum is my ultimate mission....but more of a training period for something bigger...so I knew that this fox was leading me to that mission, wherever and whatever that is). So anyways, this fox headed down the path I just came up and out of the forest. We got to the canal, and it jumped in. Again...I just knew that this fox wanted me to go with it, so in I jumped and climbed onto its back. And off we went down the canal, to wherever it was we were going.....someday I will know, but not yet, because I woke up then lol.
So what has me so excited about this dream that I would blog about it? Well...I do not believe in coincidences. If I have a dream about a fox, since foxes are so important to me, I am going to look at it and figure out why God gave me that dream. This doesn't mean I think all dreams are important and such...that could get dangerous...and dreams are NEVER a substitute for God! That being said, I take a look at any fox dreams I have and see what I can get out of them. This one was actually pretty easy for me.
If I had to place a 'theme' on the dream, I would say it was "follow the fox." (Of course, the fox was leading me to God's will, so its not like I was or am putting foxes anywhere except where they should be.) So...in a nut shell, to me this dream was God reinforcing in me to "follow the fox" and continue to use them as a "beacon" for me to do God's will!
Pretty sweet, huh? What do you guys think? Any other ideas? Thanks for reading! God bless!
mood: on fire!!
| | |
| Boy its once again been a very, very long time. Since I last blogged, I celebrated a birthday, finished my first semester of college, had a 6 week vacation, re-thought out my mission and started another semester! Here are the highlights:
College:
I had my finals in mid December over a period of just 2 days. I had 3 finals...math, meteorology and history. Meteorology was a piece of cake...history was easy and math was.....well blech. The problems my professor gave us were harder and more involved than the ones he had given us on previous quizzes, tests, as well as in our review. I still ended up with a B+ in the class though, so no biggy. My GPA ended up as a 3.82.
I came back to college Wednesday and had classes start Thursday. I have another meteorology class, Calc. 2 for math, chemistry, some computers class, and the other honor's history course. I am thinking I will have a bit more work to do this semester than last...but not many essays thankfully. (I wrote over 25+ essays last semester!)
Vacation:
My vacation started December 15th, the day after my last final. The odd thing was, my vacation was a lot more active than I have been in the past....ever! I have a season pass for snowboarding at the local ski area, so I went snowboarding a lot with my brother (and sometimes other friends tagged along as well). It was a lot of fun, though the conditions weren't always that great and it seemed to stop snowing about the time I got home. (We had received 30" of snow on the year by December 15th. We've only had 2 feet since...most of that being in Late December). I also did a lot of things with my friends....football, Risk, video games, and, with a couple other friends, I saw National Treasure 2. We also had a gift exchange for Christmas (and my birthday) and I ended up getting all 7 Narnia books in one!  How awesome is that??
Lets see...my family took a trip to Vermont to visit my aunt's family just after Christmas. We were going to do some snowboarding up there as well...but that was about the time the weather got warm and wet instead of white, so we didn't end up going. It was still a really fun trip though!
Mission stuff:
To start this off, I wanted to update on the situation at my (old) church....we have left and are going to a new parish. It is a bigger, much much much more beautiful church. The Mass itself is done the right way, everyone is much more reverent, the sermons are short (lol) but powerful and I love it there! Its sad to leave the other parish that I grew up in...but this other one is so much better.
Ok...now onto the only real reason I am making this entire post...I have some new mission info that really isn't new...I just didn't see it before. Now if you go back a little over a year, to Jan. 13th, 2006, my mission became clear(er) to me. I was to gather the troops of God, just as the fox in the Narnia movie was to sent to gather Aslan's troops. I then set out on a mission to bring protestants to the Catholic Church. However...as time went on, this was creating more problems than doing good and as the one year anniversary approached, I took another look. Here is what I found:
1. The fox was gathering those already loyal to Aslan...he wasn't going among those who opposed Aslan or didn't believe he was back, trying to convince them. Instead, he rallied those that were already willing to fight. This is different than what I was trying to do the past year...instead of converting people, I need to rally them and help them prepare for battle (and we all are in battle each and every day whether we realize it or not!). Don't get me wrong...I still love my Catholic faith and still think it is the true one and all that stuff I have said over the past year....but I do not see it as my place to work on that and I also see and believe strongly in unity among all Christians!
2. This unity I talk of is also symbolized through the fox's mission. (I didn't even see this until after I started focusing on unity...). The fox is not just gathering those of his own kind. In fact, there is not another fox shown in the entire movie except him...so there aren't even any foxes in the army. Instead, Aslan's army is made up of gryphons (which have became quite important to me lately), fauns centaurs, cheetahs, beavers, etc etc etc. Lots of different species, all putting their differences aside to unite and fight against a common enemy. So this to me just backs up my thought that I am not to gather people to the Catholic faith, but instead work with them as a brother in Christ to fight our common enemy: evil and sin.
Alright....so what am I doing about all this. Well...its clear to me I need to gather as many as I can who are willing to fight. Like I said earlier...we are all warriors and are doing battle every day. Some are called to do more battling than others, but at the very least we battle to live a good moral life. Anyways, how is one supposed to gather people? A group that could meet regularly and such would be nice, but I wouldn't be able to gather many. The internet is a great gathering source...after all, I haven't even met you in real life (well...almost all of you), yet here you are reading and thinking about my mission. So I am focusing my efforts on an internet community...but how does one gather a community online?
Yes....I am making another forum...but more than a forum....a website as well....with blogs (I already have a couple people who are writing awesome blogs that would love to be linked to from my site). I started working on ideas for this over the past couple of weeks and have started the physical work in the past few days. It has been quite frustrating at times...namely because of my lack of ability to make computer graphics and my impatience with waiting for ideas to come to me....but things are progressing and I am battling those feelings and refuse to give up on it. I believe I am still a few weeks, if not a month or more, away from opening and beginning to actively gather people...I will keep you up to date. If you could pray for me and my mission, that would be greatly appreciated! I can't do this (or anything) without God being actively involved!
Alright...I have given you more than enough to read! God bless you all! If there is anything I can pray for for you, let me know! I want to start a prayer journal type thing...
mood: warrior-like
| | |
| Hey all! I had some time, so I thought I would post some updates as to what I've been up to and, despite my title, some quick and brief mission updates on a new way of thinking about things...but first, the more fun stuff!
I am in the last week of classes for my first college semester already! WOW did that go fast! I have a final tomorrow for my meteorology lab, but he is allowing us a 3X5 notecard to put stuff on...so I am not worried at all. I have 2 finals (math and meteorology, the "lecture" class) next Monday and a history final Tuesday...then I am done! All in all I enjoyed semester 1 a lot, especially the meteorology stuff like working down at the campus TV station behind the scenes! That was just awesome and I can't wait for next semester to do it again! And, we are moving into our new studio then too! 
Speaking of meteorology, over this weekend, I built a(nother) weather website for campus and the surrounding counties. A few other meteorology majors from my class quickly wanted in on the fun, so I appointed myself chief meteorologist and broke down the forecast area into sections, with each one being the head of a section. As for me, I don't have a section...I make a blog post (or more) a day kinda outlining the whole region...make maps and such...and share my ideas with them! Its a ton of fun! And quite frankly, this has good potential to grow to an actual state-wide operation since we all live in different parts...it would be almost too easy to set up lol
Lets see...its finally snowing decently! Actually, with the wind, it is quite intense. I can't see out of my (3rd floor) window becuase the wind has driven the snow into the screen, where it has stuck. We have had wind gusts over 55mph for 3 of the last 4 days now as well and yesterday was very icy....after Mass and Sunday School, I didn't walk back to my dorm, I skated! 
Alright...a little bit about my mission now....I've been thinking about it a lot lately because its quite frankly been stressing me out. Yesterday morning, I had a thought hit me suddenly...one of those "light bulb" moments that I quite frankly believe is God speaking...anyways, this idea basically involves me stepping back a bit and letting God place those who need me in my path instead of me trying to find them. Both 1 Pet. 3:15 and Matt 7:15, which are both important verses to me, reinforce this thought process that I need to back off a bit and let God do his thing. The only reason I really brought this up here is because I am going to try to go back to what my blog used to be...which is updates on me, instead of what it had been lately, namely a tool for my mission. Going along with this, the whole issue with my church back home...there isn't really much I can do at this point anyways...anything I could do has pretty much already been done. My parents feel they need stability and peace in their faith life and have started to go to another church....I'll be following them there. I simply do not think this is my battle...
mood: its snowing, so I'm great!
| | |
|
