Peace

God is good all the time, but sometimes it is so much easier to see that God is good. It is beautiful outside. I'm at home with my family plus my cousin Chantelle. We spent the day together, enjoying eachother. We ate a delicious steak dinner while the snow gently fell outside coating the world in white. We walked for hours in the snow, laughing, talking, being. We made and drank steamed milk together, sitting in front of the fire in the living room until our eyes began to close. And now in this peaceful house we will rest.

Wishing you were all here.

Stewie

Far Too Heavy... Apologies

So this year I have been thinking a bit about such things as postmodernity (and whatever it means) and the emergent church (and whatever they're on/off about). So today in Christian Theology my prof gave an interesting summary of what the term postmodernity entailed. She said it was a plea for help. It was a plea for help from a world who is despairing because everything that they put their confidence in is failing them. Reason and the capacity to think, science and experimental development, philosophy and psychology, the arts and all the other faculties of study... none of these has provided answers without developing more problems and questions. There is Nihlism in our society, a despair that beautifully contrasts with the hope that Jesus Christ has extended to us all.
I think when we try to come at God in our usual arrogant way of study, we fool ourselves to think that we can fathom God's infinity. We surround ourselves with theologies and then we cling to them as though they were the final say on who God was. One thing that I've started to appreciate is the anabaptist philosophy on theology. It is a focus less on clinging to a theology so tightly as to take drastic measures to protect it, but in making sure that any theology they believe is something that can be lived out and makes sense when practiced in a community. We have learned a lot about who God is and His character through his historical interaction with us, his people. I think that we can know certain things about God. I think we also really like to imagine that we know God enough to put limits on his capacities.
There is a real danger in creating a generation that believes what they're told, when they're told it without question. It's a danger that the German people succumbed to in the 1930's. I think that it is important to challenge and compare whatever it is that we are being taught or handed, with a critical mind seeking after truth. I think this involves a lifetime of reading, thinking and conversing with the wise people in our lives.
Oh and something else that came up in one of my classes:
You know the verse saying that as followers of Christ we need to, "Be in the world, but not of the world". I found it kind of interesting that this "verse" never actually appears in scripture. It's someone's paraphrase of what Jesus was praying to his Father in the garden. Check it out. John 17:6-18.

Peace Out *w/ Kip lisp*

"What? No Dance!"

First of all I would just like to say that Carly has sweet tear-aways.

On to lesser important things...

Oh the drama. So we have this ultra-sweet Christmas banquet coming up and it is just classic. A comment from one of the guys on my soccer team should sum it up nicely: "I met my wife there". Needless to say people are simply frantic to get themselves a date to this thing. So then I think to myself, "what's the deal anyway? this is a menno college! There isn't even a dance (which some people are fairly upset about... as if they didn't get the memmo that they signed up to go to a mennonite school :) That made me laugh) so people can't get jiggy wit'it as our generation is oh so familiar with.
So because I've had some bad experiences in being people's "friend" dates. I'm going to opt not to pursue this course of action. Maybe if i'm dating someone before the banquet I'll take them... but that isn't really an option right now.

For the sake of conversation:
To dance or not to dance... a menno/reformed question.
Feel free to leave your opinion, this is mine:

In my experience "dances" (a fairly relative term but I'm referring to something we're all familiar with like the good ol' fvc highschool dance) are a needless temptation to a majority of the individuals involved. It is also my experience that dances can be a riot amidst friends who are simply making fools of themselves and laughing it up. I think however that it is something that I would willingly forgo in order to keep myself and others from an incredibly "in-your-face" temptation.

Looking forward to hearing from you all.

S-Double Rubble Stubble

Reim Time*

*A girl named Tasha Reimer came up with this clever nick name for the Reimer camaraderie on campus.

So I have the pleasure of writing a sweet Ethical Reasoning paper on the human moral duty to feed the starving people of the world. I'll be using Kant's Catagorical Imperative (which states that we should act only according to the maxim that we would at the same time will that it become a universal law) to support that claim. Then I will argue against Kant's Catagorical Imperative using the argument of Ethical Egoism which states that we ought to do only what is in our self-interest to do, and this excludes expending effort to feed starving people. I will then counter the argument of Ethical Egoism with the argument that Ethical Egoism is unacceptably arbitrary and therefore fails as a moral theory. Ethical egoism demands an unacceptably arbitrary preference to one's own interests dividing the world into two categories: oneself and the rest of the world. It requires different treatment of different people for no justifiable reason and therefore it should be discounted for the same reason as racism. I will then back up my (now destroyed) argument against Kant's Categorical Imperative by using Ayn Rand's Philosophy which states that any moral theory that does not place an indefinitely higher priority on the needs and interests of self, violates the worth of the individual in a vulgar and reproachable manner. She states that, "the basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. . . The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice – which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction – which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good." After pointing out the many flaws of Ayn Rand's theory, I will declare that I have sufficiently proven that as humans we have a moral duty to feed the starving people of the world on the basis of Kant's Categorical Imperative.

So now I'm going to go write my paper... I hope you enjoyed your lesson on Ethical Reasoning. :)

S-double rubble

Stealing the Life out of Poetry : (

So I came to the realization that my writing wasn't as clearly laid out as I thought it was. I will try to explain this a little better. I hope very few of your opinions of me were damaged in the process :)
Ok, so I was inspired to write this poem as I was walking home one evening watching the brilliant moon dancing among the holes in the clouds. I began my poem describing/personifying the moon as a beautiful woman in a black gown (the night sky) wearing all kinds of jewelry speckled with diamonds (stars). After achieving a satisfactory picture of the moon in her beauty, I began to relate this image to the beautiful woman in the poem who "motions for me to come". Then I realize that there was a man who was standing in front of me the whole time (implied that he's been observing the same spectacle). The woman/moon then disappears behind the clouds and, captivated by physical beauty (as I plead any man might be), the narrator (which I guess is me :) ) wishes that he might have jumped at his chance to "steal her away". He then realizes that the other man did jump at the chance and he "missed out". "Missed out" is of course a relative term because the author must have arrived at some sort of enlightened state regarding the situation to have written such a satiricle piece.
I hope that helps :) and I am still laughing.

S-dub

College

Her hands shake in anticipation
Temples pound like elephants in her head
Fidgeting fingers flipping the phone
Open and closed, around and around
Fresh air does nothing to appease
The tunnel vision of her mind
Kia Krause craving caffeine

An Improvised Weekend

So plans to go to Calgary this weekend went down the toilet due to bad weather forecast both for the Coquahalla and Roger's Pass. It stinks because I only get to see my grandparents once or twice a year but it is probably for the best because I don't think you guys would've appreciated the news that the Reimer family died in a car accident... I wouldn't appreciate that kind of news if I was in your shoes. While we're on the topic, my friend Elena here at school recieved news that one of her good family friends had died today. There is something about raw emotion that snaps you back to reality. We live in a world with much brokenness.
I got an assist in our soccer game on the weekend... as a defender I'm proud of that :) We came back from 0-2 to put it into shoot-outs and for only the 2nd or 3rd time in my life I was a part of the winning side of a shoot-out! I didn't shoot. We were pretty pumped as it was only our third win of a tough season.
After our game I had the pleasure of announcing the men's volleyball game here at school... lots of "Chad Friesen with the huge kill". It was fun and I got paid!
I went to South Abbotsford MB church today. It was awesome. They pick up and drop off CBC students on a church bus! The pastor of the church was (if I'm not mistaken) the pastor who married Joel and Ali this summer. He spoke on prayer and it was good. Very fitting for Canada's IDOP.
Speaking of prayer, I might just go do that.

S-double-rubble.

Naivety

Her pale perfect features faintly peer from behind a vaporous veil of cloud.
She winks, watching me from a distance.
Her elegant ebony gown floats freely about her delicately distinct form.
From the tantalizing tiara atop her soft satin hair,
to the serene silver rings round invisible toes,
diamonds dot her body sparkling supernaturally,
Like God shining through holes in this black canvas universe.
She makes a motion for me to come.
Blindly I bumble into the modest man in front of me pleading his pardon,
Suddenly, silently she slips away into the deep dark of midnight's mood.
I'm left lingering, head raised high hoping heartily for another chance,
to break the bonds of silent sounds,
and say the words to unite mere man with the goddess of the gorgeous.
But the fair fellow ahead of me got there first.

for clarity's sake:
In this poem I'm comparing the flirtatious woman with the moon as it teases in and out of the clouds. Because the moon is a tease to everyone who sees her... so is she. It is a comedy... I guess that means it made me laugh :)

Life and Times of SDVR

I just went kayaking for four days and it was awesome. I learned how to roll a kayak and the combination of the zero degree air and the near zero degree water (in which my head was submerged for at least a minute) made me pretty sick. But I rolled it on my second try and I did it twice to prove that I could do it. It was very cold. My feet didn't warm up for five hours even with wool socks on (don't ask me why my feet were that cold because they didn't even get wet!).
This trip also marked what was definitely my most elaborate menu plan ever on the 'trail'. For breakfast, I made the crew bacon and egg mcmuffins. For lunch I made a salmon patee served on melba toast with Pringles. For dinner I made fresh linguini noodles with a seafood (crab, scallops, shrimp, in no small quantity) alfredo sauce. That was followed shortly by a pumpkin pie with whipped cream that I made and baked from almost scratch on the beach at Kunechen Point. It was a marvelous day.
Highlights of the trip include being blasted by a thirty minute squall that approached without warning from down the fjord, doused us with sleet and blew through leaving the snow level a mere 200 meters from the ocean. Another highlight was definitely seeing (and feeling) a sea cucumber, seeing a two and a half foot sea star, paddling the tandem kayak with my roomie sheldon and playing pirates. Another highlight would have to be eating far too much sugar on the ferry ride home and laughing rediculously with the rest of my group.
Halloween was great fun. I woke up early to dress up as the "evil anabaptist". This consisted of coating my face/neck/ears in mud, giving myself grass hair under my camo hat and dressing in full camouflage with a big knife (obviously for killing people like an evil anabaptist might). I thought I was pretty clever being at an mennonite school and all. Joel Bron dressed up as a pumpkin, Dale dressed up as Darth Maul, Brittany and Janel were ferry princesses, Jill was a sweet old granny, Joanne was a marshmellow, Kelsey was a hippie, and Sheldon was "super OL man" in a full spandex body suit. All in all, pretty sweet. So then my buddies Eric and Phil from the soccer team had a Halloween bash at their house on campus and we had some fun secretly turning the heat for the house up to 90 degrees and laughing at all the people sweating.
I had to go to bed early though (as per usual on tuesday nights) to wake up for Outdoor Leadership cardio in the morning. We had our second Tae Bo session with this fifty year old woman who absolutely destroys us and then tells us that her seniors classes do better than we do! It is an amazing work out though if you ever get the chance :) Then she goes and leads four more classes for the day! It is sickening. I have never sweat like that in my life before.
For dinner today we ate Pork medalions with rice and veggies with cheese and a roll... it was good, like most food here. I think I might succeed in making my meal card last for the semester.
I've been able to spend some quality times with my cousin lately here at school. She is such a sweety I love her. I never really had the opportunity to get to know here before but I'm enjoying it quite a lot right now.
All my midterms are finished and I believe that I did fairly well on all of them. I know that I aced two of them but as for the rest we'll see. School is going well though. I have really enjoyed strapping the old thinker on again. I don't think that I've ever thought this much about what I believe in my entire life. It is great to be able to do that, and constantly be bouncing your thoughts off other people who are also thinking about these things. There are some amazing people here that I have the privelidge of talking to.
Well, I hope that about fills you in on my life recently. Oh, Carly Dyck is sitting beside me right now and I just need to say that she's awesome. Definitely didn't give her the time of day in high school and I have since apologized for that.

I hope you all are well.
Love, S-doggy.