My New Year's resolution is to stop procrastinating, I think, but I haven't really decided yet.


I mentioned starting an underground fighting ring to someone from Sunday School class. I think it would be a great way to attract new people to church who might not ordinarily come. He agreed that it would probably do that, and then returned to his ping-pong game.


On Christmas I had a too-long conversation with someone about hairstyle. I simply mentioned that he was looking nicely trimmed, as he is usually fairly shaggy in between haircuts. He told me I should get a haircut too. I had been considering shaving my head, though it usually takes me some months either to get around to it or to be sure I don't want to start dreadlocks. I usually go at least a year between shearings. Once I went two years and donated 12 inches to Locks of Love. King David's son Absalom would grow about five pounds of hair before cutting it. I don't know if he donated it. My recently trimmed interlocutor told me it took him only two days to get sick of his long hair and have it cut. He informed me that not only is long hair impractical, but that I shouldn't shave my head either, because we must take into account social normatives. I considered cutting my hair into a mohawk, knocking on his door and telling him this was an intervention.

on violence

A lady security guard shot someone who had come into a church and started shooting people because he didn't like Christians. Her account was heroic, and has been for me conciliatory in the dilemma of violence and faith. As a practitioner, self-proclaimed, of the martial arts, I consider at least as frequently as I work out on my punching bag what a rare occasion it would be that I should be justified, much less that I would bring glory to God, in fighting. I believe a person has not only a right but an obligation to defend his family, others who are defenseless, even himself against random violence. However, I've often wondered if it would be a true testimony to Jesus Christ to defend oneself with violence when one has been targeted specifically for faith in Christ. I feel that the security guard in the recent incident resolved this matter well, with objectivity, and not only without compromising her faith but even perhaps glorifying God in cutting short mass murder and in recognizing God's calling in her life. She did mention, after all, seeking God's purpose in her life in a three day fast just preceding the incident. The only question that remains for me is the amount of satisfaction I'm allowed in kungfuing somebody. I've sometimes had the impression that Christians should be reluctant warriors at best. Then I read in the psalms, "The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked. Then men will say, 'Surely the righteous still are rewarded; surely there is a God who judges the earth'".
"What I cannot understand," wrote C.S. Lewis, "is this sort of semi-pacifism you get nowadays which gives people the idea that though you have to fight, you ought to do it with a long face as though you were ashamed of it. It is that feeling that robs lots of magnificent young Christians in the services of something they have a right to, something which is the natural accompaniment of courage- a kind of gaiety and wholeheartedness" (Mere Christianity ch 7).

I sprained my ankle skateboarding in a 12 foot bowl. I fell off and my leg folded up underneath me and went numb. I lay there and whimpered a minute, then Dirk helped me stand up. I asked the Lord to please let me be alright, though I knew I didn't deserve it. It is reasonable that I should suffer for trying to learn vert at age thirty. "Do not put the Lord your God to the test" (Duet 6:16). After resting a minute and talking to Dirk about gravitational time dilation and the creation of the universe, I drove home with my uninjured left foot. My right ankle meanwhile swelled up and turned purple and I was on crutches for two days. Then I had to go back to work. I limped for a month. Two months later I can almost run normally again but I still can't ollie. God spared me any serious consequences but he did leave me with enough to remind me to take some previously ignored factors into consideration, such as age or lack of AFLAC insurance, when assessing the risk involved in my self-amusement. I remember hobbling away from campus after class one night and hearing suddenly the noisy clacking of skate wheels rushing over the sidewalk, echoing ominously between the buildings on the empty campus. It's one of those ugly noises, like underground hardcore, or sportbikes, that awakens a craving inside of me. I looked back just in time to see him catch big air over a sidewalk ramp. For just a moment he hung in the air like spiderman in silence, then the wheels were clacking and rushing over the sidewalk again. I resumed limping to my van, now with some vicarious exuberance but also with some envy, wishing I hadn't gotten hurt.