i already killed my facebook, and i won't be online much in the future. i want to be simply human, without a digital identity. call me a Luddite or whatever else, but the time has come to head the other direction: eye contact, spring water, kisses, fresh produce, and blood. if you have my phone number, call it sometime before i kill that too. i hope to travel to Chile before 2011 begins and scout out a new world to raise my family in peace. you can read my words here: if they mean anything to you, i'm glad. Love to you all! be grateful for everything, and fear nothing.
Oh all the money that in my whole life I did spend Be it mine right or wrongfully I let it slip gladly past the hands of my friends To tie up the time most forcefully But the bottles are done We’ve killed each one And the table’s full and overflowed And the corner sign Says it’s closing time So I’ll bid farewell and be down the road
Oh ev’ry girl that ever I’ve touched I did not do it harmfully And ev’ry girl that ever I’ve hurt I did not do it knowin’ly But to remain as friends And make amends You need the time and stay behind And since my feet are now fast And point away from the past I’ll bid farewell and be down the line
Oh ev’ry foe that ever I faced The cause was there before we came And ev’ry cause that ever I fought I fought it full without regret or shame But the dark does die As the curtain is drawn and somebody’s eyes Must meet the dawn And if I see the day I’d only have to stay So I’ll bid farewell in the night and be gone
Oh, ev’ry thought that’s strung a knot in my mind I might go insane if it couldn’t be sprung But it’s not to stand naked under unknowin’ eyes It’s for myself and my friends my stories are sung But the time ain’t tall, yet on time you depend And no word is possessed by no special friend And though the line is cut It ain’t quite the end I’ll just bid farewell till we meet again
Oh a false clock tries to tick out my time To disgrace, distract, and bother me And the dirt of gossip blows into my face And the dust of rumors covers me But if the arrow is straight And the point is slick It can pierce through dust no matter how thick So I’ll make my stand And remain as I am And bid farewell and not give a damn
I am so full of gratitude and awe at how blessed I am! The past several months have been simple as town life can be, full of handy projects, snow hikes, daily fellowship with many beautiful brothers and sisters, and learning to ask the Father of Lights for the things that I need. He’s always faithful when your attitude is right. And it’s been awhile since I’ve had a good attitude. Lately he’s provided his son with spatulas, bamboo stalks, a good paying job, and a free ’92 Toyota Corolla, just for asking! I fear the past decade of my communication has been mostly talking about the way that things are wrong, how they’re not the way they should be, and raging on and on and on about said unhappy subjects. This is why my prayers didn’t work: because I whined about it instead of saying “please”. My friends, I hope that you will forgive me, and believe in me that the Holy Spirit will teach me how to speak.
There’s always been something in my heart that I just have to get out- something that was placed there by the Most High for life, and it is powerful, unstoppable force. It is freedom and love and unity: in short, the gospel. It’s strange that when I try to accomplish the goals of the gospel through my pride, I exhibit anger, violence, rebellion, isolation, self-abuse and madness. It is so hard for me to live in this world. I’m glad Jesus gave us the heads up that the world would hate us and persecute us, that we don’t belong here, and that we have a home with him, soon in coming. Without his presence, and without his words of hope and warning, I would have undoubtedly killed many people and/or myself by now, and I am not being hyperbolic. Still, he has to wrestle me down until I say “uncle” and love my enemies. I don’t understand how most of you are happy to be here, comfortable in this world, afraid to leave, cool with everything, tolerant of stupidity, preferring not to look at injustice. I want to go home. Why am I here in the first place?
Instead of complaining about the way things are, or preaching about the way they ought to be, I hope to start taking the organic God-given goodness I know in my life, and juxtaposing it with false attempts to force goodness. I can do anything through him that gives me strength. The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. I know where my help comes from, I know where my possessions, protection, life, health, and provision comes from, and I know where it doesn’t come from. I don’t need anything else but what I got, and if the world was just a polite option, offered for those who are in need of its services, then I might not spend so much time going to drastic extremes to prove that me and Jesus have everything. But since it’s in my face all the time, in my mailbox, on billboards, at the top of this browser screen in flashing pixels and cleavage, in the advice of my friends and family, in my job application and bank account application processes…Far from being shackled by it or stifled by it, I feel the need to let those making the offer that I can and will refuse. I’m fine, thank you. No really. Not interested. Maybe you didn’t hear me the first 5000 times- GET OUT OF MY FACE! Hopefully I’ll learn the process of resting in the happy assurance that nothing can move me, and that’s enough. The least I can do is take a few deep breaths. (You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?)
I’ve woken up with dew in my hair, and just sang praises to the Creator with the doves and sparrows who were just waking up too, because all i can hear is their songs, the running brook next to my campsite, the rain dripping off the trees, and NOTHING ELSE! I washed off in 10 feet deep of mountain spring water, drip-dried, read my bible, ate breakfast, and walked around and ate berries and looked at mushrooms all day. $200 dollars a night bed and breakfast has little appeal to me anymore.
There are people in my life that I will love for the rest of my life, and not because all we do is have fun and pat each other on the back. Some of us have yelled at each other and called each other names, cleaned up each other’s vomit after too many drinks, and pushed every last button we had. We also shared food, money, vehicles, clothes, beds, laughs, cries, and prayers. When someone’s messy we clean up after them, when they’re unreasonable or cranky we forgive them, and when someone needs a stern talking-to, we can do that, because we’re family and we love each other. Whenever someone asks me “where do you go to church?” it’s immediately awkward. I don’t get anything out of a 2 hours long cheesy, loud, hyperactive illusion of spiritual excitement. All the praise in the world is just noise if it isn’t REAL. Jesus says you’re really his friend, really his disciples, if you do his commandments. If you can’t get high off of loving ugly obnoxious insane people, you shouldn’t be able to get high on Jesus. In sum, I have all I need. It’s called the body of Christ. Don’t tell me “not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together”: you only assemble twice a week- we’re doing this every day, and we don’t even have a name for it!
Furthermore, there are some who talk a lot. There are some who work a lot. There are some who pray a lot. There are some who read a lot. (this is like a dr. suess 1st Corinthians). There are some who listen and hug, and some who never say anything to a group but they’ll give you the best advice you’ve ever gotten over coffee one-on-one. Sometimes creepy, dangerous deceivers sneak their way into the fold, and then somebody has to get them away from the family with the right combination of love and force. (you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?) some of us are good at spreading the gospel, some are good at discipling over time, some are good at counseling young couples, some are good at washing dishes. None of these tasks necessitates or intimates ownership of another human being, respect for one over another, titles, centralization of power, or anything else that goes along with being a priest, pastor, reverend, pope, or master. The experts of the kingdom are the children. The leaders of the flock are usually unseen. I don’t need someone to run my life and rule the body of Christ like a Roman emperor or a medieval feudal lord. Jesus came to set up a kingdom not of this world, and it is here. No earthly substitutes will do!
Every time I get a cough, there’s at least 3 people (usually sisters) telling me which herbs to take. I only get sick once or twice a year, sometimes not for 2 years, and when I do it doesn’t last long. I have not been to a doctor for over 5 years, and with the exception of the occasional fever reducer, no pills or antibiotics or shots in that time, either. The body was created to fight off most infections, and the plants of the wild forests and fields are powerful enough t o knock out most of what the body can’t fight. Humans have twisted nature into poison, and then realized they could make loads of money doing it, and now they can’t imagine bringing it to an end. It’s not “health”. God has given us everything richly to enjoy!
Marriage is given by the Divine One to teach us about Divine Oneness. I’ve never took the oath, but I’ve been granted the opportunity to look so far down the path of love that it frightened me, and then I kept going because it was so exhilarating. It’s like holding on to a tree trunk for dear life because you’re scared at 60 feet high, then climbing to 75 feet to see how awesome that feels! The subversion of God’s plan for love comes from selfishly trying to control a relationship to keep it for yourself instead of giving it back to the hands of the Giver. No one I have ever met has tapped into the full realization of the unity that is possible through Christ. Right before he was crucified, Jesus prayed his heart out to the Father for YOU, and asked “make them one as you and I are one”. Why are we so scared of intimacy? Can you make Oneness any more majestic by superimposing a template for human relationships? Is dating or courting what Jesus was talking about when he said “make them one”, or is there more? Why didn’t Jesus ever marry? How could David write in Jonathan’s eulogy “your love was better than the love of women”? (I assure you they weren’t gay). There are women that I will love till the day I die, and the love I have for them will not take away from the love I have for you, nor from the love I have for my (future hypothetical )wife. There is more potential for union in love than has ever been imagined by the most rabid Jane Austen fan, more thrilling than “The Titanic”, even. I don’t need to find the appropriate filing cabinet to store the applicable paperwork for a grant to love. There’s an endless supply of it.
Once you’ve given up everything, you’re not scared of losing it anymore. If you’re ready to go home, you can look down a loaded barrel with peace. If you don’t own anything, you don’t need to lock your doors, cause no one can steal anything from you. (anyone whose car was robbed that I know of had the windows smashed out. Lost their stuff and had to replace the window too. Bummer.) Most theft can be prevented by paying attention to sketchballs and avoiding them, keeping an eye on your stuff, being honest, respectful, and calm in confrontational situations, and praying in faith for your protection. If you get robbed, thank the Lord for what you have left, and inform the police. If you get beat up, thank the Lord for your life, and an opportunity to suffer in this alien planet. If you die…. “when I look back on the stars, they’ll be like a candlelight in central park, and it won’t break my heart to say goodbye”. What are you holding on to that is so worth the fear? Every law that has ever been written by man has only been for one purpose: to protect the things that are precious to you. If you store up treasures in heaven, where rust and moth and rot cannot get to it and robbers cannot steal it, law becomes a very silly concept. It’s how the Gentiles handle their business because they have no protector. Mao was right: “political power comes from the barrel of the gun” and there are men whose 9-5 job in life is to carry power to kill around on their belt and protect your stuff from sketchballs. (and if you’ll permit me to lapse into whinyness, they’re not doing a real bang-up job of it.) Trust the All-Mighty for the protection of your life, your stuff, and your family, and have a good night’s sleep. Please stop freaking out about property and laws and stuff. Share, for goodness sake, and maybe there will be more to go around.
Well I’ve gone on long enough, I’ll wrap up: there is nothing that can be provided by the government, police, DHHS, FEMA, doctors, lawyers, teachers, gurus, pastors, priests, kings, popes, presidents, tycoons, sugar-daddys, Dr. Phil, Oprah, or anything else in this world that has not already been given to you freely, abundantly, richly, with a big red bow and sealed with a kiss from Father, Jesus the Messiah, The Holy Spirit, and the Body, his Bride. I don’t need it. Please stop offering. We’re fine, thanks.
in the past month i have moved downtown asheville and Leigh has moved back home to greensboro, i have almost died about 20 times, i've met like 200 new awesome people, and i have joined the prestigious ranks of those who transport themselves upon two wheels, among such greats as Timothy Cannone, Aaron Mattix, and Lance Armstrong. let me tell you briefly about the last two weeks:
Friday, Nov 6th: Joyful met me at a park for an hour, just to catch up.
Saturday, Nov 7th: Leigh surprise-visited me one hour before work at 9 PM. she dropped me off at work, where i spent the next 12 hours.
Sunday 8th: Woke Leigh up and went to visit my family for a few hours before she dropped me off at the Greyhound station for Knoxville, where i arrived at 7 PM, gave money to a 6 ft. tall crackhead, drank 2 Guinness Extra Stouts, and went to Tina and Kaiah's house, where i finally got to sleep around 1230 am. i had been awake for 30 hours.
Monday 9th: Tina had an appointment in Maryville, TN, which is an infinitely more interesting town than Jefferson City, so i borrowed Tina's bike, pumped up the tires, adjusted the brakes, and rode my happy butt all over for hours. ran into another cyclist, named Charles, age 19, volunteer EMT, who showed me the bike roads, the library computer station, the rednecks, and told me about being a paramedic, which i think might be my next career choice. Tina and i went shopping for Kaiah's birthday at the hippy stores in K'ville, then picked her up from school, went home and made a dinner of Buffalo steaks, avacado, sauteed portabellas, and 1554 new belgium ale. yummy!
Tuesday 10th: Kaiah's 9th birthday! we surprised her at lunch by showing up to her school cafeteria and chillin' with the cool 3rd graders. Jordan couldn't cut her "steak" (probably because it was made of ground sudanese christians and quickrete cement) so i helped, and mediated several death threats. 3rd grade isn't what it used to be... later that night some old friends showed up, and i made the bad decision to get in the car with Jason for a quick run to the store. turned out to be a really quick run, cause Jason just got a 95 Lexus, and was showing me how awesome 6 cylinders were by taking rural roads marked "35 MPH" at 75-90 MPH. i stayed very calm.
Wednesday 11th: knoxville greyhound by 6 am, walked home from the station by 10, biked and bused to work for an hour-long meeting, biked 5 miles on big, fast roads in the rain to get home, got a few hours sleep before work at 3 AM
Thursday..... hmmm. sure it was a blast, just can't remember. biked and bused and biked to work at 10 30PM
Friday 13th- woke up at 6 PM. keep that number in mind. biked and bused and biked to work by 1030, worked 11 hours
saturday 14th: got home kinda late, feeling wide awake, rode around town awhile. then just as i was gonna go to bed, Leigh walks up the driveway. surprise again! eventually i got 4 hours of sleep, then woke up for a party at my house, and Leigh drove me to work by 9 again. worked 12 hours
Sunday 15th: woke Leigh up again, went shopping for the potluck at my house i'm throwing, cooked for like 3 hours, had lots of people over all afternoon (you wish you were there!) and after they left, we loaded up Leigh's car and headed for Coleman Bound'ry, some 30 miles into the mountains. the stars were beautiful. by the time we fell asleep at 10:30, i had only slept 4 hours since friday evening, and i was hallucinating hardcore.
Monday: hiked around all day, drove to asheville, shot some pool, said goodbye, passed OUT!
Tuesday: i hate tuesdays. biked to the Plasma Bank to try and sell my blood, had to go back for more ID, biked back, spent 2 hours getting injected, inspected, detected, neglected, and all KINDS o' mean, nasty things... then got refused because i've had acupuncture. spent another hour at the community college trying to get into the EMT program, only to encounter the meanest, least helpfullest woman ever and told that since i already have a degree i can't get any more funding. then i biked to the library to print off pamphlets for my new gutter-cleaning service, and the printer refused to work! oh, the other people could still print, no probalo. just not me! then i went to bible study and ANOTHER potluck, where i met Fred and re-met Erin, who are 2 of my new favorite humans ever. so it ended well.
i'm gonna go see if i can print those pamphlets again. it's wednesday. is this much fun legal?
Crater Impact Characteristics The primary goal of LCROSS is to measure the concentration of water ice (ice to dust ratio) in permanently shadowed lunar regolith. Setting constraints on water ice will set a fiducial for the LRO studies of hydrogen neutrons, that are expected to have water ice as a source. Several important processes occur when a body strikes the lunar surface, including the initial impact, ejecta and plume dispersion, and the exposure of fresh subsurface (Figure 1). Continuously monitoring the impact events at a variety of spatial (m to km to exosphere scales) and temporal scales (sec to minutes to days) allows us to understand lunar impact processes and assess the likelihood that water ice, due to impacts occurring within the permanently shadowed target crater, may be distributed non-uniformly.”
Oxford, N.C. — Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby's bedroom in his mother's Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.
But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.
“This directive establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes "National Essential Functions," prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.”
"The Insurrection Act empowers the president, either upon his own initiative or at the request of a governor to use federal troops to address a variety of civil disturbances that could be provoked by a major terrorist attack. Sections 332 and 333 make it clear that it is up to the president to determine when and where to use federal troops to enforce the laws."
SEC. 3. DESIGNATION OF MILITARY INSTALLATIONS AS NATIONAL EMERGENCY CENTERS.
(a) In General- Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, shall designate not fewer than 6 military installations as sites for the establishment of national emergency centers.
(b) Minimum Requirements- A site designated as a national emergency center shall be--
(1) capable of meeting for an extended period of time the housing, health, transportation, education, public works, humanitarian and other transition needs of a large number of individuals affected by an emergency or major disaster;
(2) environmentally safe and shall not pose a health risk to individuals who may use the center;
(3) capable of being scaled up or down to accommodate major disaster preparedness and response drills, operations, and procedures;
(4) capable of housing existing permanent structures necessary to meet training and first responders coordination requirements during nondisaster periods;
(5) capable of hosting the infrastructure necessary to rapidly adjust to temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance needs;
(6) required to consist of a complete operations command center, including 2 state-of-the art command and control centers that will comprise a 24/7 operations watch center as follows:
(A) one of the command and control centers shall be in full ready mode; and
(B) the other shall be used daily for training; and
(7) easily accessible at all times and be able to facilitate handicapped and medical facilities, including during an emergency or major disaster.
