Back from the Point of No Return

My apologies for the long interlude between updates. Things have been busy admittedly. Though I guess some of the time I could be writing, I spent late at night in my bed with my calculator and circuits text book, solving problems for entertainment. Can you say "nerdy" with me? :)

First off, I've really been enjoying my TA position and being able to help people out. Since I've spent so much time reading up and practicing with my calculator, in some respects I think I'm known as "Mr Calculator" (not literally (speaking of parentheses, Bunyan had parentheses inside parentheses in Pilgrim's Progress, isn't that funny?) of course) by some of the students. A few come to me when there are any questions on the 89 at least.

"Thumbs up" if you can find any kind of flow in that last paragraph.

As I was going to class on Friday I saw once again an elderly Mechanical Engineering professor with a green slouch hat on (from the UK apparently). I say hello every day as I go past and this day I had a few spare minutes so I paused and said "Since I pass by you every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I thought I'd introduce myself. My name is Logan, I'm an Electrical Engineering student."
He paused for a moment and then folded his hands in front of him as if reciting something. "I am Eric Price and my son-in-law is an Electrical Engineer. He's called a "nerd." And he gave me a dry smile. Then he kept talking for a while about how his son-in-law had worked for a certain professor and another professor whose name he didn't recall, I stated that I didn't recognize the professor's name and he said
"Well, you obviously don't know much, so good day!" smiled, and left. I just laughed to myself as I went in the building. Melody said that he was the type of guy whom you thought was a riot and though you feel you were just insulted, you're still laughing! :) I liked him. The first time I saw him was about a year ago and he was talking with another person about how students complain about such and such and then he winked at me and said "Us adults can handle it, but the children fret."

Yesterday (Sunday) was a beautiful day, I was sorry to have spent so much time indoors. I guess I did go out for a bit at the request of Nathan V. to free Greg and William from the clutches of the villain Henry. Then ran around for a little while myself ;)

During Sabbath School, Dave gave a lecture on Deborah and Barak mainly and offered some of his findings, for example, whether it really was a lack of faith on Barak's part to want Deborah to go up with him, after all, he is listed in the Hebrews' Hall of Fame. He also passed around some art work of the scene where Jael slays Sisera with a tent peg through the temple and one of Eglon on the ground with a sword in his belly. I enjoyed watching people's expressions as the pictures went around!

The sermon was on 2 Cor 7:13-16 and spoke of the joy of repentance and restoration. Both Dave's lecture and Bruce's sermon were very good, and the sermon especially hit home for me.

During lunch, I had brought my calculator with a new program I'd found and asked Philip to draw a circuit for me, which he did (explaining to Christa all the while the wonderful theories of electron flow) and then Jonathan got very upset and said Phil! Do you want to destroy the world like that! Everyone knows you have to add one of these to the circuit: and he drew a couple of symbols on the bottom of the circuit. I glanced at it and said "Oh! A five Pi Theta!" And he nodded "Yes! You MUST have a five Pi Theta."

Then he spent another fifteen minutes explaining to poor ignorant Philip how to construct a five pi theta from a single molecule of copper wound 700 times around a tiny keg, the diameter of the barrel was 1.2 inches or 0.4 meters, depending upon whether you were in SI or English units ;) As though the two are even close in length!

It then degenerated into a drawing lesson on how to draw a scroll rolled up, then smiley faces (Laura put down a huge, buck-toothed grin on the paper) and then JD grabbed a pencil and drew some anime characters, a "much-too-cute" little girl with pigtails and a little guy with wild hair, madly waving his arms around. It was EXTREMELY stereotypical of anime but Jonathan grabbed at it with a shriek. No! NO! That is NOT anime!
"Yes it is Jon, it's more Japanese than the Avatar and stuff you watch!" needled Norman.

In other words, the CY table was a riot, for the most part. I laughed at the scenes and drawings (I think the backs of about five bulletins were filled) and wandered around, the men were busily engaged in two different groups and the ladies were chatting away, I went inside and watched the young girls' "talent show" as they were auditioning for parts in their school play of Cinderella. I think Paige was trying very hard for the part of the stepmother, she croaked when she sang and galloped around when she danced. "Not bad, for a hippopotamus or an elephant" I murmured. "What did you say?!"
"I said, Not bad, for a hippopotamus or an elephant!" She swung at me and I ducked it.

The second service was again about compassion and ministry, another very good lesson and one which I'll defer any description to the audio file.

After cleaning and talking with Laura, Stephen, and Elizabeth for a time, I headed out to the assisted living center and met Jonathan there and we went inside. The ladies were gathered in their usual spots. Willie was very glad to see me again, she appears to know quite a bit about the Bible and enjoys making comments about the king of Egypt being stubborn. As I go along I like to point out things that I believe are important or things I find interesting, in a Matthew Henry sort of way ;)

Well there was one thing that jumped out of me very strongly while reading about the institution of the passover and I wanted to share it here as well.

I noted that the passover is easily a type or a foreshadowing of Christ to come, He is our lamb, without blemish, and a year old (or in other words, the prime of manhood). Without the blood of Christ applied to our lives, as the blood of the lamb was applied to the doorposts, we cannot escape God's wrath. It is only through His blood that God passes over us, and we are saved.

Yet there is the institution of the Feast of Unleavened bread at the same time. I wasn't sure if the Passover came at the end or at the beginning and upon investigation, found that both the commencement of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover, took place on the 21st of the first month. So this was my observation:

Immediately following and with our Passover, or our justification, also comes our sanctification, a period of seven days, or completeness, when we are set aside and sin (leaven) is taken out of our lives and our dwellings. Of course I do not think that there is only a seven-day sanctification, but regard seven as the number of wholeness or completion. It strongly reminded me of when Paul says "Being confident of this, that He which began a good work in you will complete it."

I just thought it was a neat picture of how our salvation doesn't merely stop with justification and the blood of Christ, but immediately turns into our sanctification. Of course, I could be stretching things, but in this case I don't think it's a stretch. While at the Wagner's, I looked it up in Henry because it sounded very Henryesqe to me yet I didn't remember reading it. I just was uncertain whether or not it was Henry who had stated it and I was only just remembering it. But just stop and think about that picture for a minute, I find it very beautiful and refreshing.

And here is a quote from Henry that I found interesting:

In Deuteronomy 20, when talking about how the trees are not to be destroyed when the sieges were laid to the inhabitants of Canaan, he said
"That reason, for the tree of the field is man's (the word life we supply), all the ancient versions, the Septuigint, Targums, etc., read, For is the tree of the field a man? Or the tree of the field is not a man, that it should come against thee in the siege, or retire from thee into the bulwark.
"Do not brutishly vent thy rage against the trees that can do thee no harm."

It reminded me very much of the trees in Tolkien's world, and the evil that Saruman did to them. He also points out how in the heat of passion, sometimes men destroy the land around them, not thinking of the future and how God provides for us and would not have us destroy what would support us. Nor would he have us destroy his works needlessly.

Well, that's all folks!