I'm listening to a cd that Katrina's parents got me. It's three hours of Garrison Keillor's radio show from Prairie Home Companion. It's absolutely hilarious and it's wonderful to listen to. He tells a story about a man named Donny Hart that he knew as a child. Donny Hart is retarded, and he tells about the amazing thing of being Donny's friend. Donny was not competitive as most children are. He would do anything that you told him to do, and he was so gullible, but he was not competitive. He said he saw Donny Hart about twenty years later with a group of other retarded people at the bus stop. He said it was so singular to be there with them, because they were not stiff in the way they moved. They carried themselves with a loose sort of gait, like kids. They were not self-conscious, they just were who they were. He said as children, that Donny would be whoever Garrison suggested that he should be when they were playing. If Garrison wanted Donny to be an Indian so Garrison could play cowboy, Donny would do that. If Donny had to be the bad guy, he would do that, but he wasn't a very good bad guy because he was too sweet.
He said that when Donny was with you, he simply enjoyed your company. He wasn't interested in having any sort of advantage. It strikes me as such a novel thing. If we could all be described as such. If we were all not competitive. We see the behavior of retarded people, who act sort of like kids in their ease of manner, as pitiful. We see them as less fortunate, because we see intelligence as what makes us human, what makes us important. If you really look at it though, they are more fortunate in a way. They are not captivated with this idea of being better. They do not strive to be the loudest in the conversation. They do not strive to invent the funniest idea. They do not attempt to go farther than the next man in their idioms. They simply are, and they don't put any stock in the games that smart people play.
Oh, if we could just not worry about things like we do. If we could just enjoy each other's company like that. If we could sit in silence and be ok. I suppose that's one thing that distinguishes husbands and wives or best friends from other sorts of relationships. Married folks can sit in silence. Best friends can not say a word and be ok. You could be around these sorts of people, and they could have an entire conversation around you as you were talking, and neither of them would have said a word. They might simply smile or laugh at what would seem to you to be absolutely nothing. But to sit together..........it's important to have that with someone. I suppose that to sit with my Lord is like that. To sit with Him is like sitting with a friend. He hangs on your every word even though it really means nothing at all, and you hang on His every word, because it means the world to you that He talks to you. "He walks with me and He talks with me" as the old hymn goes. Enoch "walked with God." Moses spoke with God face to face "as one speaks with a close friend." I am glad to have this with more than one person on this earth. I hope to have it with others as I go. I hope to be like Donny Hart, to have faith like a child, to know that things are as they are and God is in control.
Posted by A. Whipple at 7:27 PM
The new pictures are up on the website. They're the ones from Brenda's camera on the Florida trip. It's not much of a surprise that there are very few pictures in which I'm doing something 'normal', whatever that means. Enjoy!
Posted by A. Whipple at 8:52 PM
By the way, the Emmanuel Baptist date has been changed back to the 18th. Just a little FYI. I'll be getting some more pictures up soon.
Posted by A. Whipple at 12:37 PM
So finally the blog is back up. Funny that now that it is, I have little to say that is relevant. Classes are over and that's great, I got straight A's on my jury. It was interesting and somewhat humorous to watch freshmen and sophomores freaking out over finals and juries. Not humorous in a sadistic way, but humorous in knowing that in a couple years, they won't worry about it so much. It'll just be something else they've got to do. I hope they learn amongst that change.
Andy's sick, and I hope I don't get whatever it is. I am truly thankful for the friends that I have. I have more mature Christian friends than most people my age, and it really helps. God would get me through things without them if they were not there, but it is wonderful to have them. A friend of mine said that my friend Jeff is a bit feminine. Now Jeff is my mentor and he is more of a man than most men on this campus. So I was forced to laugh at this. She thought that he was feminine just because of his gentle manner. She'll come around to knowing what Godly men are. It's amazing that God is getting me through this whole finals predicament. I guess I shouldn't expect any less.
Posted by A. Whipple at 12:35 PM
Another thing God taught me was truth behind the verse "let the dead bury their dead." Jesus told this to a man who wished to bury his father before he followed Jesus. As if it was more important. Some say that the man may have been speaking in a different context and that the man's father may not have actually been dead yet. But Jesus told the man to let the 'dead' bury their dead. And he was not speaking in metaphors. The 'dead' in the verse are those that are dead to Christ. Those that are dead in their sins. Dead in their lack of hunger. So thirsty that they can no longer feel the parched leather of their own throats. They are the dead. Let them fail to see the priority of following Christ. It is we who are partially alive who must seek more Life. It is we who know where Life is rooted who must chase the Eastern horizon. We cannot worship the body. Rich Mullins said "Ultimately, that is what I amount to. They will have to bury me because if they don't, I will stink up the place." We must let the dead bury their dead. We must seek Life.
Posted by A. Whipple at 8:20 PM
It's amazing looking back and seeing that God has used my own selfish desires for His own purposes. I have, for the past couple weeks or so, been so concerned with what people think of me. This is not a good thing, since it is not other people that I will answer to in the end. But God used it to give me the illusion that some people who are close to me were acting against me. Then He showed me that they weren't, and that I held bitterness against them for doing the things that I wrongly thought they were doing. But I must forgive all, my friends and my enemies, for we are all enemies to our friends at some point, and "if when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, have been reconciled, shall we be saved through life!" (Romans 5:10)
I was God's enemy, and yet He saw into His creation and design of me, and through His love, He found me worth dying for. I must be willing to die for those that will be my enemies. Not for my own glory, but for the glory of the Father, that they might know Him when I am not seen. David said, Psalm 35, "ruthless witnesses come forward; they question me on things I know nothing about. They repay me evil for good and leave my soul forlorn. Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting. When my prayers returned to me unanswered, I went about in morning as though for my friend or a dear brother. I bowed my head in grief as though mourning for my mother." Jesus said "love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." Thank You Father for using my selfish overanalysis to teach me my faults.
Posted by A. Whipple at 8:11 PM
If I've ever said anything correct to anyone about anything important, it's not me talking. I've made that mistake of thinking that my mentors are really behind the things they tell me. It's not them, and they know that. By the road we've chosen to walk, we would see straight through each other if it was them behind the whole thing. A friend of mine just told me that I was right. I asked him about what. His response was 'everything.' This is all well and good, but he needs to be closer to our Father, instead of knowing that I was right. I suppose that maybe the good of him learning to trust me more could come out of it all. But God is still with us anyhow, so it makes little difference what I want to get out of things. I am the worst person in the world when it comes to saying things that matter (I'm even worse at getting work done). I am nothing more than a beast and a pauper. This body I am in is not even my own. Though I have abused the use of it and seemingly tried so hard to destroy it, it is not my own. My mind is not my own. So who I am is something beyond these. I am not even completely this that I am yet. I won't be that until I die (and of course I don't know the nature of Heaven, so that may or may not be), and then all that was before won't matter. It makes it seem rather trivial at this point.
Isn't it funny how we often envy the stories of others. God is writing all our stories, and we try to envy the stories of others. But your story is not my story, and mine is not yours. Each of us is a unique and beautiful story, with a noble beginning, a conflict-filled middle, and a joyful and beautiful ending. And that story is just (as CS Lewis says) the title page of the Great Story in which every chapter is better than the next. It's amazing to know that now is an immeasurably small fraction of forever. God be praised! Glory to His awesome Name!
Posted by A. Whipple at 2:07 AM
It is frustrating to try to talk to someone about something for which they have no context. I was on the way to Perkins last night with a friend of mine who is Hindu. She and I got to talking about marriage and sex as it relates to marriage. I feel very strongly about how God feels about sex and it's place in marriage. I know that I don't understand it yet, and that I won't completely (or as close as possible at that point) until I can experience it. But I do know that it's a spiritual thing. If it was just physical, God would have said don't have sex too often because you'll get addicted to the indulgence. He wouldn't have said anything about marriage that related to sex. But God clearly tells us over and over that extra-marital sex is wrong. (He also tells us to obey the laws of our land. So if you're thinking "well, I've found that special someone, so now it's ok, we don't have to wait anymore," know that you would be wrong to have sex before you are lawfully wedded) But anyways, the way that God designed the whole thing around the human heart and our relationship to Him is so beautiful and wonderful, and it was frustrating trying to explain it to someone who has no context about the things I know. I would love to just take my friend by the shoulders and look her in the eyes and tell her how wonderful my Father is, but she wouldn't begin to understand. She sees no need for change in the way she thinks. I must pray for her. She has so much potential if she would only follow the path set down by The One.
Posted by A. Whipple at 6:20 PM
I'm sitting in the library, browsing over what I'm really s'posed to be doing. That would be a research paper on DH Lawrence. Personally, I think I'd rather vomit up a pile of sea urchins, but I don't have much choice in this matter. This semester has seemed absolutely insane! I think it's cause we did Messiah right at the very end of it, not to mention all the other stuff like the Christmas tree lighting, band concert, so on and so forth. Pray for us! We're not done yet, and I know that when we are, we'll look back and laugh at the seriousness with which we took the whole thing. I think that's us not seeing it through God's eyes. He knows every minute of every life He has created. Praise the Holy One! It's the coolest thing that our Father is the same Father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!
I gotta get out of here and get to work. God bless you all!
Posted by A. Whipple at 10:28 PM
// John 5:30 // we are the pen; God is the author
Miscellaneous apparitions
no concerts
Correspondence
Brenda -
tcshanx@yahoo.com
Elissa - elissakeck@hotmail.com
Adam - adamwhipple@hotmail.com
Accumulated paraphernalia
Caedmon's Call
Derek Webb
Bethany Nobles
Katrina's Website
New City Cafe
Joe Mayfield's Site
Andy Vandergriff's blog
Andrew Peterson
Many
moons
ago
