If by Rudyard Kipling

So Dr. Alvin Reid mentioned this in chapel on Thursday, which reminded me of this poem, so I went and reread it tonight. It's awesome. It's also mentioned in Brand New's song Sowing Season (Yeah), which is where I first heard about it.
If


If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Will you sit and wait for the Great Pumpkin with me?

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is a pretty fun, annual, pre-Halloween show to watch. From Linus' uncompromisable hope in the Great Pumpkin, Lucy's unnotorized document trickery, Charlie Brown's rock collection, and Snoopy's daring adventure as a flying ace, it's a great show. It's intelligent too. How many cartoons out there have a classical piano medley in the middle of the show?


Anyway, after watching it, I thought about how I want to find someone I can sit and wait for the Great Pumpkin's of life with. It sounds silly, I know, but whatever.


Anyway, I'm watching the Wvu game and am kinda bored, so I was just looking over a couple things I wrote a couple weeks back. I'm too much of a pansy to post them on Facebook, plus they're not very good, but I like them so I'll post one of them here tonight and the other some other time.

If Courage Was A Friend of Mine

 

The thought of all the chances left untaken

Pushes me to the brink, where I pine

To think of the unified hearts that could’ve been,

If courage had been a friend of mine.

When the winter comes, I see my need for heat.

It’s then that I see my need for a sun to shine.

But coats and falsehood are love’s cheat,

Courage was never a friend of mine.

The art of love is made up of many breaths

And continues on amongst many sighs.

I’ve always been the one that up and left.

Courage is no friend of mine.

The world moves quickly beneath my toes

And even quicker before my eyes.

Maybe soon heartache will be the one that goes,

If courage ever becomes a friend of mine.

 

Written a while ago, still applies to me today.

"I can’t put my heart into words, so my feelings will never come out right. A mute wordsmith I will be, 'hello' will always be heard as 'goodbye.'” 


One the bright side, I scored 154 in my main Fantasy Football league and I should win in my other league as well. :D

I dream to hold you in my arms

Song by Jon Foreman that's on my mind right now.

Here,
My Dear,
This is where
We'll shake the nightmare free

I dream
To hold you in my arms
I dream
To hold you in my arms
To hold you in my arms
Wide awake
In my arms...

I think I figured it out
We need to be together
Like the shore and the sea

We are not one thing
We're drawn here together
My ocean and me...

I dream
To hold you in my arms
I dream
To hold you in my arms
To hold you in my arms
Wide awake
In my arms...

Love,
We sleep apart
For the last time
For the last time...

I dream
To hold you in my arms
I dream
To hold you in my arms
To hold you in my arms
Wide awake
In my arms...

Mushy mushy...

So this is going to be a mini rant. I'm tired of all those mushy mushy Facebook statuses that are all about our this someone has found this "perfect" someone and blah blah blah. This may make me sound bitter but I'm more annoyed because almost daily I see a status of this kind, some statuses are more...idealized than others. I mean, i'm happy that a lot of my friends are happy and have good boyfriends or girlfriends, but once you get past statuses like "[name] had a great time with so-and-so <3" it gets to be a little annoying. Just as I got on Facebook this morning I read someone's status who spent their status detailing their night last night and how amazing their "romantic other" was. Honestly, after I read it, I thought hmmm the Bible says that Mary treasured all these thing (Jesus' growing up stuff) in heart, she didn't post it on Facebook or write it out on a big scroll and drape it all over town. I know these things are kind of different but if I had a "romantic other" and we had some big special evening, I'd focus on her, not broadcasting my love life to Facebook. Ok, so maybe I'm a tad bitter. Oh well, I still live a pretty blessed life regardless of my romance department. God is good.

There's something about Jónsi...

So there's this guy, Jónsi (real name is Jón Thór Birgisson), who is the lead singer of a band called Sigur Ros. And this guy has an incredible falsetto voice and both with his band and by himself, he makes absolutely gorgeous music. NPR recorded an 80 minute long concert he did last night and has put it up online for the next couple days to watch. I HIGHLY recommend watching it. A lot of people say that Jónsi and Sigur Ros' music is what Heaven might sound like and honestly, they aren't too crazy to say that.

A Poison Tree by William Blake

"I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine -

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree."

Also, I think the book I'm using for my British Lit class, Norton's Anthology of British Literature, has now become one of the 5 books I'd take if stranded on a desert island. 

Something I need to meditate on daily

"Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully to the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy.'" - 1 Peter 1: 13-16

A blast from the past

So a friend of mine was talking about Allan Sherman on her Facebook status, which reminded me of a song I heard a couple times when I was a kid called "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah." It's a pretty funny song and in a world where original, clever humor is being replaced by witless jokes full of innuendo and crude humor. This is not to say that I myself don't laugh at that sort of tasteless humor at times, in fact today my friends and I ate at a place called Chubby's Tacos, which my friend and I had a good laugh about (yes,i'm a shining example of maturity), but it's so much nicer to hear something that is clever, original, and genuinely funny.

While I was trying to go to sleep

I started thinking about something. I thought about how today I was watching old episodes of Smallville on my computer and (personal sharing time coming up, be warned) and I then saw a clip of a pretty sexy scene from an episode I remember watching way back when when one of the characters, who is minus her inhibitions thanks to some kryptonite, strips down to her lingerie and jumps into a pool, trying to seduce Clark Kent. When I first saw this as a young teenage male, it was pretty impacting on my road of puberty. I'm ashamed to say that I lusted today just as I did then. However, this post is less about "Dan's confessional time" and more of the point I'm trying to make. As i was thinking about this just now, I realized how messed up our culture is and why it affects almost all males growing up. With tv, movies, music, and the internet, it is incredibly easy for someone to see images of sexuality, be it a steamy scene in a tv show or a pornographic site on the internet, images of illicit sexuality are all over the place. Thinking about this, the reason why this is such a great problem struck me. Because boys are able to access this garbage (which is what it is, sinful, lustful, garbage) at early ages (I think I read a stat that most boys have seen some form of porn by age 8), their first glimpse of what they ought to have in their future marriage is of sexuality, of physicality, not of genuine love or devotion. This usually leads to a sex-first, love-later sort of ideal that we can see all throughout our culture. Thankfully, God blessed me with parents who raised me well so that despite my struggles with lust growing up, I don't see women as merely sexual objects. One of the problems in our culture that goes hand-in-hand with accessible sexuality is the lack of parental guidance. I was blessed with parents who loved God and taught me well, most people don't have the same blessing. According to a Census taken in 2009, there are over 13 million single parents in America and 84% are mothers. There is a complete lack of fathers in America and that greatly contributes to the degeneration of American males. When porn is just a click away and there is no father around to teach a son about respect for women or to demonstrate love for his wife, it's no wonder that Hugh Hefner is one of the most successful businessmen in the United States.

To close, I'll end with this quote from CJ Maheney, which I saw via Mark Driscoll's twitter feed:
"You must touch the heart and mind of your wife before you touch her body."

"There Is So Much More"

An excerpt from Brett Dennen's song There Is So Much More

I wonder how so many can be in so much pain,
while others don't seem to feel a thing.
Then I curse my whiteness
and I get so damn depressed.
In a world of suffering,
why should I be so blessed?

White Blank Page

Here are the lyrics to White Blank Page by Mumford & Sons, a song and band that have been getting a lot of plays from me lately:

Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly
And can you kneel before the king
And say I'm clean, I'm clean

Chorus:
But tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with all my heart
Oh tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with all my heart

A white blank page and a swelling rage, rage
You did not think when you sent me to the brink, the brink
You desired my attention but denied my affections, my affections

Chorus

Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life
Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life

Attentillation

So the people behind last years "make the color of your bra your Facebook status for breast cancer awareness" have topped themselves this year. Somehow they've convinced thousands of girls that posting a status of where they supposedly like to put their purses in a sexually suggestive way is somehow supporting breast cancer awareness. Riiiiiiiiiight. I feel like this is just a way for girls who don't consider themselves to be slutty to act as if they are, all in the name of supporting breast cancer awareness. If you ask me, it's a tissue paper thin veil for girls to get attention. Statuses like "I like it on the floor" and "I like it on the table ;)" are popping up on girls' statuses everywhere. I don't think that this is the worst thing in the world but I feel like girls who claim to be Christians ought to be wiser and more discerning than this. "Oh, it's not what it sounds like, it's really to support breast cancer awareness!" Crappy excuses come from hearts that know right from wrong and still want that taste of wrong. Are girls who post this as their status committing a grievous sin? No, I don't think so. I'm sure there are some girls who are doing it for honest, honorable reasons of supporting the fight against breast cancer. However, from some of the statuses I've seen, most girls think it's just the funniest thing ever. I imagine some girls' thoughts go along the lines of, "Ooh this makes me sound like a whore but it's totally not what it sounds like. How scandalous!" In our culture, most people have gotten to the point of mental perversion that when they see a status like one of these, they go straight to the status meaning something like "I like having sex in this place or that place." I say this as one of the many fallen men whose minds is corrupted beyond human repair. For some guys, I'm sure this is titillating as all get out.  I think that's what most girls want. They want attention and this is a great way to do it without actually crossing any real lines. For me, this isn't so much titillating as it is laughable and to be honest, a little sad.
This just seems like an example of how girls' desire for attention and guys' desire for titillation can get out of hand very quickly. This reminds me of something the Summit pastor J.D. Greear said at the 20-20 Conference this past February, "Guys are liars and girls are naive." Girls think this status is all fun and games when in reality, it is probably aiding in the lustful desires of many guys. Likewise, guys aren't stepping up and saying anything, they just gaze on as they whet their sexual appetites, or like me, they yak on and on about it without the nerve to challenge girls to be wiser. Honestly, I wouldn't be shocked if a guy cooked this whole idea up, it's definitely the sort of perverted thing that would come from the mind of a guy.

"But I will hold on hope, And I won't let you choke On the noose around your neck"

Lately I've been really into Mumford & Sons, thanks to my brother Tim. They've got a lot of elements that my favorite bands have but have some new interesting stuff to bring to the table (banjo, mandolin, accordion in indie rock that isn't polarizing). Plus, their lyrics have a lot of themes and ideas that I've been thinking about lately.

Anyway, the Braves pulled out a win today and the Giants beat the Padres, so the Braves clinched the Wild Card!! I was afraid they wouldn't get it done when the Padres tied it up yesterday but I guess the Braves had it in them to pull it out for ol' Bobby Cox.

I also won my Fantasy Football game in my main league and still have my Qb left to play. That's always nice.

On top of those two awesome things, I also got to hang out with and talk to some friends, so overall it was a great day.


To close, I offer lyrics from Mumford & Sons' song After the Storm:

"And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair. "

The best lines from Enemy At the Gates

"Man will always be a man. There is no new man. We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbor. But there's always something to envy. A smile, a friendship, something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there will always be rich and poor. Rich in gifts, poor in gifts. Rich in love, poor in love."

Facebook venters

Is it insensitive of me to hide the Facebook status updates of someone who is using it to vent nonstop? Maybe. Oh well. To quote Zach Galifianakis, "Mark that under who gives a s--t."