Exam Time

It's exam time, meaning I shall be writing a touch less.

This is from the MoMA in NY. I forget who the artist is, but I kinda like it.

Before and After

Anyone seen wheel of fortune?

They got nothing:

Ralph Lauren Hill Billy Jean Little Eva Marie Saint Peter Paul & Mary Ann Tipper Gore Vidal Sasoon

Easter

I still slip with my Christianese from time to time. Especially around Easter (the best of holidays should you care to know).

He is risen!

I guess that's one of those super cheesy lines that everyone says on Easter Sunday. I'm told it's cheese anyway. I don't get it. I guess a lot of people just say it. But it's really a phrase that touchs me deep! He is risen!

I think a lot of the time I spend so much effort analysing and critiquing religious institutions, theorizing on the relevance of Christianity and Jesus, that I forgot how much I love the guy. i wish I could just put aside my pride and be more honest about it with people. Why shouldn't I be? I tell people all the time how great my friends are, and speak marvelous things about my family.

So Jesus is great. I'm not all the way there yet, but in terms of finding the freedom he promises, it's becoming more and more evident each day. That's kind of exciting.

Happy Easter! He is Risen!

Guilt and the art of Living

If i were to say I've been learning anything recently, I say it was that guilt is one of those terrible things I seem to be addicted to. Maybe it's the protestant in me, but I can't help but always reverting to the feeling that I have to somehow 'impress' God. This is a pretty basic assumption for some reason, and I'm not the only one seeking Jesus who is trying to kick this idea. But I was struck this evening at how destructive guilt can be.

Guilt is useful only in so much as it directs one into honesty about themselves, and healing. But often the opposite is true. We feel guilty, and we hide it, or suppress it, or in the worst case, can't STAND the fact that we have to be so utterly tied to this Christ guy who seems to exude it (a little close to home?). Turth be told though, it's once again a matter of our misperceptions. And this is what caught me off guard in a beautiful way.

There is NO condemnation from Christ. There is correction, but never condemnation. It's not that my mistakes don't dissappoint him, but he refuses to reject me for them. And I gotta say, I like that.

This year has been a year of me and God testing each other. He's making sure I'm really in this for the long haul. And after almost 6 years of BEING in it, I'm about ready to make sure that what He's saying is true. The Bible makes a whole bunch of promises to us, that often fall on deft ears. We see God SAYING he won't condemn us, then why do we feel so condemned? He SAYS he will set us free, then why are we in chains everywhere?

Sufficient to say, it didn't add up for me, so I've been setting out to be sure of these things. And surprisingly, that seems to be a good thing to do! I still feel let down in a lot of things, but slowly He proves himself trustworthy.

My general question to anyone: why wouldn't you want to know if this God is telling the truth? Are you afriad to find out He's not?

I think when we reach the point where we are able to say yes to that, we can embark a journey that difinitively answers "no, he IS honest".

Kjell's blogging.

[b]The following is the random musings of Kjell during Art History:[/b]

Sometimes when I sit in art history I think how funny it would be if I could pick up Caralee and drop her from the cieling. This is because from where I am sitting she appears to be very small, so small in fact that this would be very easy to acomplish. I feel that if this were, however, the case, that it would be somewhat disastrous for the quality of any kind of class of the art history variety since I am likely not the only one who would find such an experiment intrigueing.

Thusly, I imagine that the entire art class would devolve into Caralee being picked up and dropped repeatedly. Mabye if this happened she would get injured and would be able to qualify for Worker's Comp. and then with the money she would be able to hire some super-intelligent aliens to teach art history with a skill only rivalled by Edward Slopek, who may or may not be a super-intelligent alien.
I like Edward Slopek, he has a very Polish head from which interesting things come.

La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. What you just read was the greates bar of music ever written, if you could have heard the intonations with which it was uttered in my head your brain would have exploded with its beauty. Its too bad that you can't write pitch or tone in a series of "la"s.

Thoughts on Venus of Urbino: I think that people grow pubic hair because the area is more sensitive to cold, this would explain the tendency of female nudes to place their hand strategically in this spot since they have to model like that for years at a time and the artist's studio might be very cold since artists are pretentious and picky like that and if its cold then they have a justification for wearing their silly scarfs and berets.

Barron, he makes your teeth turn green...Barron, he smells like gasoline!....Barron...Dum dum dum Barron...Barron Barron, Barron Barron...BArrrooonnnnn

[b]The preceding has been a Kjell Production. The views expressed may or may not represent those of the original author{/b]

A little bit of math?

FAR be it from me to bring up math. I expect this is the last time you shall ever hear me mention it. But I ran across this the other day. It's supposedly the most beautiful equation in math.

It uses the five most important numbers in math: 1, 0, pi, e, and i.
It connects the four major branches: arithmatic (1, 0), geometry (pi), algebra (i), and analysis (e)
It works with unbelieveable precision.

It shows that there is an inherent beauty present in math.

One professor once said "God doesn't exist, but if he did, this equation would prove it."