Climbing Arthur's Seat (Into the Tearing Wind)

A looming mound of sharp turf-covered stones rises,
sharp like the chill that races up my spine, sharp like the biting
breeze that cuts through my coat like a blade.
This mound is an island amidst Edinburgh’s crowded streets.
Here atop this mound, this island, the hands of time sit still.
Here soft comes the rain, and tearing comes the wind.

Fortress walls have crumbled. Kings have passed away.
The earth is old, but the air is young,
still young as it was the day the world was made.
That air, that fierce young wind tears the words from my mouth,
carries my voice over the evergreen grass of Caledonia, over the seat of kings
where soft comes the rain, and tearing comes the wind.

Mason’s stones lie scattered upon this aged mound,
towers toppled, walls crumbled, the fort destroyed beyond recognition.
Yet I cannot help but wonder what they once were,
what sort of men stood at arms atop them in the same soft rain,
and what sort of voices spoke, voices whose words were torn from their mouths,
like mine, bourn away and still carried by this same ever-young, tearing wind.

The highland gale cries, it screams long, loud, and clear,
a wind fresher, a wind greener than the grass that grows
upon this aged mound of rock and earth. Voices in the air whisper
below the gale’s keen, asking almost altogether unheard,
“Was this the throne where the Bear of Britain sat? Was this Pendragon’s roost?
Was this where warriors feasted? Peerless Cai, bold Bedwyr, and the rest?”

Soft comes the rain; tearing comes the wind.
I know my mind is filled with too much romance,
with men who likely never lived outside the songs the poets sing.
But those words, those songs, those voices still resound in me,
playing upon my heartstrings like Taliesin played upon his harp,
Like Merlin’s magic that seems to play upon my immortal soul.

Soft comes the rain; tearing comes the wind,
stirring some sleeping soldier in my soul that longs for battle, beasts, and blades,
that needs to feel the same rough, caressing wind that blew the banners of kings.
Like bottled thunder, my sharp, rolling laughter bursts out.
Blade-like and biting, it cuts through the squall’s scream,
and my labored climb turns to a run at breakneck speed.

Into the tearing wind I step, into the tearing wind,
trying to steal a kiss from a hurricane, to feel the embrace of the rain,
to find seat at top of the world, to hear the words on the wind.
This the eye. This is the sacred centre of the storm of this world’s realm.
This where the shackles of time fall, broken, to the ground.
This is where the stories end, where memory begins.

The Truth About Christianity

I want to start this off by saying that I am no expert on theology or Biblical literature or anything like that. I'm not a pastor, I'm not a theologian, and I have no formal training or schooling. But I've read the bible, and I've been learning and thinking about these things my whole life. Some I learned from my dad, who pastored at one point, some I've learned from reading, some I've learned from experience with God. That being said, here's my rant:

I have a lot of issues with how the Church in America looks. I don't mean churches, I mean the Church as a whole. One element of Christianity that everyone seems to dwell on is the idea of the afterlife. Not that there's anything wrong with believing in an afterlife. It's important, and one of the things that Jesus said he came to bring was "eternal life." But I think people are mistaken when they think that the whole point of being a christian is getting to go to heaven. It isn't about fire insurance. It isn't about being good and getting to play a harp and wear a robe when you die instead of going to hell.

This misconception comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of the fall and what it means. Yes, after the fall, the curse dictated than man has to die. Suffering and toil come into the world, blah blah blah. Everyone's heard that a million times. But that isn't the only part of it. Before man falls, he and God are humanity in perfect relationship. After the fall, that perfect relationship is broken. Sin has come between them. Paul has something to say about it in Romans 1:21, "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles."

The ultimate problem isn't that man now has the knowledge of good and evil. The problem is that he let go of the knowledge of who God is. By disobeying him, he refused to acknowledge the creator's role as God. The serpent told Eve that after eating the fruit she would "become like God" (Gen. 3:4). By disobeying God's only command, Adam and Eve were essentially saying, "No, I will be my own God. I will follow my own commands." And since man refuses God's sovereignty, he forgoes God's protection, as the latter part of Paul's passage indicates:

"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." Sin and death are not punishments in as much as they are the logical consequence. After man rejects God's sovereignty, the protection that comes with it is also rejected, and God essentially has to watch as man destroys himself with his own rebellion.

Every man has eaten the fruit and rejected God's sovereignty and protection, save one. Christ was in perfect relationship with his Father. After his Baptism God says, "This is my son whom I love and with whom I am well pleased." He does nothing in his ministry without consulting and following the will of the Father, and he follow's God's plan even to his own death. The primary thing that he gave up wasn't his life, though. He took the full burden of the world's sin on his shoulders, and that burden separated him from God. He gave up the perfect relationship with the Father that he had. That's what he means when he says "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That is a sacrifice far more painful than anything that he endured in his tortures, brutal though they were. And because of his sacrifice, we now can have relationship with the creator.

That's why I get angry when people think that christianity is about being pure and good, or about going to heaven when you die. This isn't a self help class. This isn't fire insurance. Those are tertiary elements. Christianity is about having a relationship with the creator of the universe, even though you don't deserve it, but he was willing to give up everything to let you have it anyway. Behavior is a byproduct. Heaven is a bonus.

Why Sean Is A Lazy Procrastinator

I think I’ve just figured out something. Something kind of important. My biggest character flaw is probably laziness. I am the biggest procrastinator on the face of the earth. I constantly put my homework, my creative endeavors, work, job hunting, errands, and even time with God on the back burner. I already knew that. I also know that my frequent exhaustion and burn out comes from the all nighters where I scrape by by the skin of my teeth to produce acceptable work. Lately I haven’t even been able to do that. Case and point, England, or even recent times at Mercer. I always kept moaning about the time I needed more time to finish, but I had all the time I needed. I just wasted it watching movies, traveling, eating, going to the pub, watching football games, and watching youtube videos, and arguing with people on koptalk.

But I think I figured out the root of this. When wasting time I always tell myself that I deserve this break, that I need to unwind and I’ll do it later. That’s partially true, but I’m going about it the wrong way. Psalm 60:1 says, “My soul finds rest in God alone.” Whoops. So here’s what that means: no matter how much time I waste, no many naps I take, no longer how long I wait for energy to come to me, it won’t. I will feel burnt out and tired until I find rest for my soul, and until I find that rest, I will not be able to do anything else to the capacity he created me. Furthermore, until I make time for God, and until I feed myself spiritually, I will be stuck in this limbo, this rut of half-done endeavors, unfulfilled goals, and undeveloped ideas. My soul is crying out for relationship with my creator, and until it gets it, I’m going to keep sabotaging myself. So this is my next project that I’ll pursue before I write, before I study, before I work, and before I find rest or pleasure I the things of this world, I will pursue relationship with the Father. God help me.