cutting it close

I received a response from my local recruiter:

August 11th is the dead last date that you need to be medically cleared and invited. So, it seems like this will be OK as long as the test can be complete in July, giving the medical office about two weeks to clear you. No need to stress at this point!

Yet stress we shall. I need to call the medical office in DC to see if I can get the dates pushed up. I am dreading having to talk to all the doctors again.

On a lighter note, this is wonderful:





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khristos voskrese

Easter service was wonderful. Not that we should ever go beyond the cross, but Protestant (or Evangelical?) Christianity is great at proclaiming the death and crucifixion of Christ, but it is sometimes lacking in proclaiming the resurrection. I myself tend to be more comfortable with the sorrow of Good Friday than the rejoicing of Easter Sunday. Must rejoice more.

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
Jeremiah 29:7

words in motion

You feel what you feel.
You think what you think.
You do what you do.

What I feel is difficult to express.
What I think is not always what I feel.
What I do matters but does not define me.

defer

The review of my medical records for Peace Corps came in the mail...

They are deferring the evaluation until July, pending a retest of one of the laboratory tests. One of the tests showed a slight irregularity for someone my age. The doctor wasn't worried about it, he just wanted to monitor it and retest in 6 months. It didn't seem like a big deal, but apparently Peace Corps is very thorough.

So if my medical evaluation doesn't go through until July, will I still be able to leave in September? Will I have to change programs and maybe go to a different region? Will I be able to go at all? For a long time, I have been planning my life around a departure date in September. At the very least, this news keeps me flexible and on my toes, and not relying on my own plans. My experience tells me that God likes to make me sweat a little.

I am fairly surrendered about everything, and a later departure date may work out for the best. It's just difficult to deal with such a large commitment when so little is certain. And the prospect of another round of doctor's appointments does not excite me. Maybe more news after I make some phone calls.

"Good things take time, but great things happen all at once."
-Rat Race

tee hee

Yet I am confident I will see the Lord’s goodness
While I am here in the land of the living.
Wait patiently for the Lord.
Be brave and courageous.
Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.
Psalm 27:13-14, NLT

Starting to believe this again...

:)

if we are the body...

Now if the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

1 Corinthians 12:15-31, TNIV


Behold the man upon a cross,
My sin upon his shoulders;
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers.
It was my sin that held him there
Until it was accomplished;
His dying breath has brought me life;
I know that it is finished.

give me jesus

Deeply unsatisfied with my singing on the last video. This one's a little better. I tried lowering the levels to kill the popping, but it's still a fail. I forgot about this song for a while, but rediscovered it recently and am enjoying its simplicity.

legacies and the internet

Not sure who might appreciate this, but I find it to be a beautiful piece of writing from an unexpected source. A unique reflection on our technological dependence and the fragility of life. Read it here. I warn you, it won't make sense at first. Just keep reading. Apologies for the pretentiousness.

Here's an excerpt:

The Cloud is just the internet. And the internet is just a bunch of hard drives.

The internet is really good at replicating discrete bits of self-contained data. There are probably a few million copies of any given Loretta Lynn song out on all the hard drives of the world, because lots of people care about Loretta Lynn.

But my photos on Flickr only live on a few hard drives in the world. The hard drives in the database servers. The hard drives in the networked-attached storage devices that are used to backup the database servers. A few of the pictures are on my friends' hard drives, but not most of them, and certainly not the complete collection.

When I die my Flickr Pro account will expire and a large percentage of my photos—girlfriends, family, vacations, my dog—will disappear from public view. They'll sit on Flickr's hard drives until Flickr goes out of business or loses the data.

Someone might send Flickr my death certificate, prove that I'm gone. Flickr might even give them access to those photos, should one of my friends even think to gain it. But more likely no one will even think to look. Part of my trivial legacy will go dark, sleeping quietly on a handful of hard drives.

-Joel Johnson, Gizmodo

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high above

Found a really cool ambient setting while messing with my delay and reverb pedals. Sounds amazing in person. Plugging the mixer into the mic input of my laptop kinda overwhelms it, so it came out a bit distorted. And I'm not sure where the weird clicking is coming from. This is a Phil Wickham song that I've been enjoying quite a lot. I kinda miss extended praise sets and leading worship.

spring forward is death

I forgot to change the time on my alarm clock after getting back home last night. Spent 24 hours in the car. It was worth it. What a fun weekend. Five people going in different directions on different schedules. Conflicts here and there. But when it came down to it, we left together and we returned together. Felt kinda like a family.

Pics as promised, click to enlarge as always.
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