It's up to you -- New York, New York

One World Trade Center

     I am riding back from New York this evening. It really was a sacred pilgrimage for me. New York is a tough city, and I feel empathy for those who live there. I can see why mother wanted us to leave. I imagine I would have become a strangely different person, perhaps more intimate with the streets and the darker side of life. I don't know if I would possess the knowledge I have now, or if I would be spiritual at all.
I wonder what it is like to be in active ministry in the city. I imagine it must be very challenging, but I wouldn't mind. If it's not challenging, it's not the work of God.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

     I've been thinking about education, and how I could be in a state school right now. I don't like how Adventist institutions are so far away from the city. People become superficial and complacent. I hate that. As a minister and educator in training, I need to be where the dirt is. I'm not upset that I haven't been able to experience the tougher side of life, but I'm upset I've been oblivious to the reality of life. In most cases, Adventist Education does not prepare one for real ministry. People will keep living in their white washed worlds but they are not aware of the social problems people face. We address gay marriage and abortion, but what about poverty and homelessness and hunger? Surely I know this isn't the first time Christianity has been called out for forgetting the men and women with whom Jesus lived.

If I can make it there, I'll know I can make it anywhere

          I'm about thirty minutes north of the city now and for some reason I am fearful and anxious. The last time I was here was after September 11. Father was with me, and I safely knew he knew how to handle the city. As indepndent as I think I am, I'd rather not see this city alone this time either.
          This is a great problem I have. Back at Auburn I thought myself so mature I didn't think I needed my parents (on an emotional and social level). I was fine in boarding school, but I knew I really wasn't on my own. I was with colleagues. Now in college, there are times when I feel like a little boy, and I long to go back to mother and father.

The Hudson River

Midtown from the Queensboro Bridge

I'm going to be a part of it -- New York, New York

     I've been on a train headed to New York since midnight last night. I've passed through Ohio, Pennsylvania, eastern and upstate New York. It's been feeling like a sacred pilgrimage to my birthplace. I haven't been out here in the East in a decade. Passing through these farmlands and rural towns has given me a perspective of a middle America I haven't seen in a long time.

On doctrine and covenants

"When I started to preach at twenty-five years of age, I held to one hundred doctrines; at thirty-five, I had fifty; at fifty, only twenty-five; later on, there were but ten; and now as I am facing eternity I hold only this one: I am a great sinner, but Jesus is a great Savior."

Thomas D. Talmage

Somebody Else's Thoughts, No. 5

What sweeter music can we bring, 

Than a Carol, for to sing 
The Birth of this our heavenly King? 
Awake the Voice! Awake the String! 
Heart, Ear, and Eye, and every thing 
Awake! the while the active Finger
Runs division with the Singer.

Dark and dull night, fly hence away,

And give the honour to this Day,

That sees December turned to May.

If we may ask the reason, say

The why and wherefore all things here

Seem like the Spring-time of the year?

Why does chilling Winters morn

Smile like a field beset with corn?

Or smell like to a Mead new-shorn,

Thus, on the sudden? Come and see

The cause, why things thus fragrant be:

Tis He is born, whose quickening birth

Gives life and luster, public mirth,

To Heaven and the under-Earth.

We see him come and know him ours,

Who, with his sunshine and his showers

Turns all the patient ground to flowers.

The darling of the world is come

And fit it is, we find a room

To welcome him. The nobler part

Of all the house here, is the heart.

Which we will give him, and bequeath

The Holly, and this Ivy wreath,

To do him honour, who's our King,

And Lord of all this revelling.

Robert Herrick

A Christmas Carol, Sung to the King in the Presence at White-Hall