A Few Weeks In

So, a general what-I-have-learned-in-the-first-few-weeks-of-College:

1) I am a very very selfish and prideful person.

2) Sleep is ooooh so good.

3) College isn't as easy as I thought it'd be.

4) Gabriel + Romantic Fuzzy movies (Whisper of the Heart, Emma) = Varied and Interesting Reactions...

5) Friendship is like the lowest note of a Steinway Grand, it's like a bedrock for your soul that sounds the depths of your being. You can't help but want to be a better person and wishing in some way to be worthy of that friendship. (And you also can't help but cringe at a lousy simile.) ;) It's as if God shows Himself to us through the kindness of our friends and for a moment, we glimpse Heaven.

6) I'm rather horrible with remembering people's names...

7) Chemistry and Calculus don't like me...at all. sigh. >__<

8) Family is a gift that should never be taken for granted.

9) I don't want to be a monk... =P

10) I have a long, long, long way to go in becoming a good man.

Oh the Humanities!

(Or Why I decided to major in Philosophy)

First off I couldn't resist:


Caption: I just Kant do it!

Okay, okay Horrible, aaah-I-want-to-hit-my-head-against-the-wall pun I know! =P

On a more serious note, here are some main reasons, not all of them, but a good overview I think...

1. It's something that I think I want to do for the rest of my life. Learning to love God with all my mind, is it not a worthy goal? Essentially, I want to wake up everyday, go to work and teach people how to love God. The best thing is, it's a journey that carries over into the next life. Who can know the depths of God? There is no end to His Love.

2. It seems like a good avenue through which I can channel my talents. I'm not spectacular, but I'm not totally incompetent either.

3. It's a great springboard for studies in Theology. Which I plan to pursue in graduate school.

Thinking back, the book of Proverbs has also highly influenced my decision.

My only regret is that with Torrey Honors on top of this major, and all my spare units devoted to Business classes, I won't hardly have any time for music classes. =[

But that will be a moot point if I don't first finish my application essay...haha...

Does anyone know of any people who are affiliated (teach, have taken this major, etc.) with this major at Biola? Is this a wise decision? I want input! (Please)

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

Thoughts on Creation

(This came about while reading Emerson and loathing the twisted shadows of truth which he propounds for the real thing. Wishing to right his wrong, I (though if presumptuous, time will tell) endeavored to articulate feebly an aesthetic which is based upon Dorothy Sayers essay, but also, hopefully sheds some light on what creation of art, literature, or music is.
We esteem great men because of their ability to see what is true and to communicate that truth. By learning from them, we also learn to see the truth and hopefully will see more truth. But the truth is not new, it was not created, it always was. The truth did not come from men, but from God. Why then should I seek truth within when it is without? What I say will simply be feebly articulating what has always been and always will be. True, anything I create will have my unmistakable personal stamp, but what I do either conforms to the Good, True, and Beautiful or it does not. A story may have been born of the author’s personal experience, but we esteem it because it is true, good, or beautiful and because it says something that is universal. The very fact that we can recognize it as truth proves that it is saying what already existed in some form. By conforming to these principles, we articulate some aspect of reality in the unifying context of God’s goodness, truth, and beauty. By the mere fact that another man can recognize what I say as being true, I prove that all truth is God’s truth. When we see Rembrandt’s painting or listen to Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto and rightly agree that it is beautiful and admire the author for seeing what we did not see, we come to know and see what the author saw. Art is communication. Proving that by being able to see what he saw, there is an underlying reality of which he is only uncovering our eyes from. Human creation, if good and true is showing others the reality which we glimpse. If art is creation, then creation is a mirror through which we see God, Reality itself, reflected. A mirror because the there are varying degrees of light and truth which are shed from an object.
This whole argument needs clarification in that I still have not made the important distinction between good, true, and beautiful art and just plain bad music, art, literature, etc. This difference does exist, but I will need further reflection to come to an articulation of its cause.
The passage that specifically prompted this barrage of incoherency and muddled thought was this.
“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession…Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique.” (Emphasis mine, from the essay Self-Reliance page 199) I apologize for the pompousness of this post. Emerson’s radical individualism is starting to affect me. =] I humbly submit this little kernel of mine to the scrutiny of anyone who happens to read this. Feel free to rip, tear, and batter it to pieces, hopefully we will gain a sliver of silver from all this dross.

Humility

This week, I've had to learn a hard lesson. That is, how to be humble. My teacher whom I respect and admire very much for showing me my weakness and sin pointed out in his evaluation of my Term Paper that I was acting as if I were an exception towards the general rules, not only was the quality of my paper unacceptably low, but so was my attitude. "Pride cometh before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall". Sigh. At first, I was able to see it from a third persons point of view, I knew that this would not only be a growing experience (being reprimanded) but that it would also be painful. I was overjoyed at being corrected, for I had noticed my own academic slipshodedness for quite some time already. But as the hours passed and my teacher's words took on more personal weight, the burden and shame did begin to seep into my heart. Throughout the (continuing) ordeal I've been very grateful to Mr. Buhler for pointing out my arrogance and snobbishness. This lesson is hard, but at least my lesson in humility has begun. But I recognize this: if I had maintained a loving, trusting and dependent relationship with God, this would not have happened. And until I learn to be humble as Christ was humble and depend upon my Heavenly Father as Jesus depended upon the Father then my Pride will continue to rear its ugly head.

So what I've learned so far:
1) I have been ignoring my classmates. Torrey is about learning from a community, for many months now, I have (consciously or not) been almost ignoring the comments of my friends during class, I've isolated myself in the dungeon of my own mind, which (to a certain degree) is a type of insanity.

2) I cannot conquer my pride alone, only God can. Although I am still unsure of how to destroy my pride, by God's grace I am determined to depend upon Him daily for guidance and for mercy.

3) This has certainly been an experience with God. Now that I think about it, this event was a direct answer to my prayer! I had asked God to "destroy my pride, for it is an abhorrent thing to You", God never really works the way we think He will, and that's a good thing.

I've seen now how disgusting my pride has been and I can do nothing but beg for forgivness and grace from my classmates, my family, my friends, my teacher, but most of all, from God. This is a small step, but a step nonetheless. I am still a boy and quite a stupid one, but I thank God for showing this to me. I hope I don't remain one. =]