Saturday, July 10, 2004

New Picture, with added "Tour Guide of Dan L's Room"


As you can see, there are numbers 1-15 scattered around the picture above, and below is a list of descriptions of what they are there to point out.

1- My hair, going slightly grey- which you can only just slightly tell on this picture
2- My beard (due for a trim), with a ginger tint, which has always disturbed me
3- An A4 sheet with all of last year's TT pictures
4- My desklamp
5- My alarm clock
6- A stack of sheets of Teaching Assistant Vacancies
7- A Mini Cheddars Packet
8- An old fleece which I brought up last time I visited home in Stoke
9- the candles that were on my 20th b/day cake
10- A letter from Miss Sara
11- Stuff we were given when starting TT- contact details for the staff at St Thomas'
12- A sheet with all the names of the TTs, and whose huddle they are in
13- The original information pack I was given to do with TT. Decieved I was, too.
14- My left Ear.
15- The Darkness Where No Man Hath Gone
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EEEE bah gum, is' a bit quayit in ere, luv
AY UP

*swings a cat around*

There's a line from a U2 song which says "Throw a rock in the air, you'll hit someone guilty"

Well, on myotaku you can throw a rock in the air and you'll hit no-one at all. However you will probably severely damage your monitor.

Short-ness: is anyone actually paying attention or am I just yapping on about crap in my own little corner? :p



(Be assured- any feelings of jealousy, despondance, and frustration portrayed in this post are mock emotions only, and Dan is only posting this to wind his non-commental readers up :p)
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Thursday, July 8, 2004

And also...
My TT huddle had a last get-together tonight, which was good. We ate pizza and then watched a cheesey film (cheesey ie. action type where we knew straight away- "He'll get killed; She'll get kidnapped; He'll be in the end fight; He's in on the plot" etc..).

On the way back Ronan wanted to run an idea past us.. but the way he said it was "let me put this up your flagpole and see if you salute it". I was in stitches for a fair while. You probably had to be there though. You probably had to be British too...
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New Song Conept
Haven't thought up a melody or words yet- but I was playing my guitar earlier and came up with this set of chords, which I really like.

That's the first half of this MP3 file. The second half is the chords to the first song of worship I wrote (and to this day, my favourite) "Even in the Desert"

the words in the Chorus are:

"Even in the desert You are there,
watching over us,
ready to lead us back to you

I could never live without Your love, Your eternal love,
And Your grace that sets us free"

The melody at the end of the file somewhat resembles the tune that those words go to.

Anyway, enough blabbing, here's the file:



(URL is here)
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Tuesday, July 6, 2004

If you're gay, God hates you.

Wait a sec- Capture that reaction there. (And relax, he doesn't- this is only to make a point :p)

Lets say I lived my life, giving out prophecies a bit like that.. "Hey, I think God says.. 'I hate you'". Imagine the reaction I'd get.

Now theologically, you could justify that I was rejected, and thus "If I was rejected, then they were rejecting Jesus, not me". However I have a different theory: I'd have completely lost the plot.

Imagine if whenever God spoke to the Israelites, he said "Hey, I think what you're doing is a disgrace, and I hate you, you're all going to Hell"

I don't think He'd get a very good response either. Not because of the huge gap of understanding between man's ways and God's, but because frankly He'd need a good bitch-slapping to set Him straight, all-knowing or not. Thankfully God isn't like that, so he doesn't need that.

OK, so it's true that there is a hell, and it's true that if you don't know Jesus that's where you're headed, and it's also true that by our deeds we are indeed disgraceful and deserve hell (not just talking about gay people here).

However, the "I hate you" part of the statement is the part which is in question.

Let's start off by saying yes and no, but ultimately No. And I'll expand on that.

Yes and No: There are things in my life which God hates. Having not had TT to go to lately, I've slacked a lot in the last few weeks and quite a lot of my actions were detestable, and thoughts too. The part of me which brought those about, God hates. It's called "the flesh" and essentially it's the power of sin- the part of my soul that was deeply infected- irreversably so, by the Fall (regardless of whether this was in Eden or not). Essentially part of me is carnal and sinful, and that part is the bit which actually opposes God- it down right goes against his every wish.

However, God hates me? No. because there is another part to me- the part that was made in God's own image; the Spirit. How can God hate what reflects His image? Everyone has this part to them, however it is the spirit that decides whether or not a person accepts God. Your spirit is heavily influenced by the soul and the flesh, and hence will not always accept God, even though it is his image. The reason for that is plain and simple- it all boils down to free will. You have the choice whether or not you will accept God because he has made you with a Spirit but with the freedom to do what you want. Unfortunately because there is so much sin, this Free Will often leads everyone to sin, regardless of whether we actually mean to or want to, or not.

I have free Will- freedom, but the problem is that I also have Sin. Because the free will gives me the choice to do God's will or not, the Sin itself is free to influence me to not do so. So in a way, free will has it's down side in a world of Sin.


Now- hopefully you understand that God hates the part of you which causes you to Sin, but he loves your spirit.
Well, there is no sin in heaven. If there was, then it'd be fallen, and not suitable as God's dwelling place. So, if I believe that Jesus' followers are going to heaven, then that means we have to lose that part of us which causes us to sin, along the way.

God is an eternal God. He sees things from an eternal perspevctive. If I have no Sin in heaven, then it does not define me on Earth. No matter how sinful I may be, my spirit is what defines me. And there is no sin in the spirit, because if there was, I'd have nothing of me going on to better places after death.

Is homosexuality a sin? Well, the Bible says so, but if you read leviticus in detail you'll find a load of other sins too which a lot more people have gone for. And if you read what Paul says, you'll find that though we're accountable to God to be moving towards him (and thus away from sin), in doing so our sins already count as nothing, on an eternal perspective.

Do I believe that homosexuality is a Sin? yes, firmly. But I also believe that Pride is a sin. I believe that false Gods are a sin. And yet every time my identity is attacked I can't help but try to justify myself (The subtlest form of Pride but not the only one that I tend towards), and of course, we all chase after some things as though our life depended on them, when it doesn't.

I believe in many sins, a high proportion of which I either have committed, do commit, or will do at some point.

But then I believe that sin doesn't define us. I stole a lot of money from where I worked, just over 2 years ago (just after that, I came to the faith I've had since) but people don't primarily identify me as a thief. Those who know me well generally know me as Pastoral, willing to sacrifice for others, and quite introverted at times. Even though they know about the stealing incident, if they were asked to describe me, it wouldn't come to mind.

More importantly, God doesn't see that in my identity. He never did- he saw my actions; he sees my sinful actions today, but the way he sees me is not "that one that keeps sinning". It just doesn't come into play.

So all in all, the message is this: God loves everyone. Not "God hates fags".

Sin may well be a serious matter, but when I see pictures of Christians standing with signs saying "FAG SIN- YOU'RE ALL GOING TO HELL"; when I see kids with signs saying "God hates fags; It's a Bible thing" and "Thank God for AIDS"; and when some fucked up pastor condemns Billy Graham to Hell and holds a sign with his head and "666" written on it, all on the basis that he preaches a "fag Gospel" of love... When I see all that, I have to stop and think about it. Would Jesus Really Do That? I really don't think so. But the most messed up thing of all is that God loves those guys too. Not because of their picketing and "bad news Gospel" but for the same reason he loves murderers and rapists and thiefs and all sorts; because he loves the spirit; he loves the thing which defines who you are, not what you do wrong.

Amen?
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Sunday, July 4, 2004

And on a different note
Someone needs to give These Guys a copy of This Book

More on that later, but first.. to sleep!
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Very very very brief update....
....Marco is in the refugee camp, by the way.
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Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Quiz Time
Take a look at my avatar- the picture of Marco Basile, and answer this simple question:

WHERE'S MARCO??

Is he:

A- in the middle of the road, about to get run over by that car behind him

B- A government-provided refugee camp

C- The car park of Anagnina Metro Terminal

D- Outside his house, infront of his parked car

Choose wisely!

-Dan
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   New Layout
Whatcha all think?

The guy in my avatar is Marco, one of our hosts while we were in Rome.
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Monday, June 28, 2004

Gurrgh... Tired....
It's about 12:20 am, and I really don't want to be bothered with updating, but then again I haven't properly updated in weeks.

A brief summary, then, of things of recent:

-Did some kids' work on Saturday for the day- which was meant to be paid apparently, but it actually wasn't. Turned out that St Tom's told Charlotte (our leader) that St Mark's (the church we were doing the work for) were paying, whereas St Mark's never meant to -although we did get a hell of a good deal of stuff provided for us while we were there- So Charlotte is going to sort the mess out with St Tom's, somehow.

2- Got a NEW GUITAR!! That is, I now an acoustic (technically electro-acoustic) guitar, whereas before I only had a bass. I got a great deal on it too.

This Guitar for £425 with a hard case- second hand, that is, but still in very good condition. Sounds great!

3- Found out the other day about a number of fellow employees at the map warehouse who want to get out, and are looking for jobs. It almost felt a bit relieving, knowing I'm not the only one wanting to get the hell outta there. Andy P is leaving tomorrow, apparently.

aaaaand that's about it...

Til whenever,

-Dan
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