Caleb's Blog Journal

Hey all, it has been a slow week. The last couple of weeks it has been warm/hot/humid: 60-80 F with relatively high humidity for here. Enjoyed reading at the library a couple of times this week. Will be working more shifts next week so won't be able to go as often. I'm finally reached Hezekiah and Isaiah this week, and now at king Josiah since yesterday - the line of kings of Judah and Israel have otherwise been so depressing as they continually reject God and war against each other while their enemies overpower them. 57 days till college (8 weeks rounded down) 2 months sounds so much farther away...but it must come and for the better. I finished another color to the cross-stitch project - got yellow done:





Before I go I end with part of a book I read this week which I thought was interesting and also amusing for one as I who likes to write:


Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are: 1. Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who subbed you in childhood, etc. etc. It is humbug to pretend that this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen – in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty [at least in his era – put the average age group up to 20-70 – should be as soon as possible if you are a true living/practicing Christian] they abandon individual ambition – in many cases, indeed, they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all – and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, wilful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-cantered than journalists, though less interested in money. 2. Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writer, but even a pamphleteer or a writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.
3. Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity. 4. Political purpose – using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude. ... When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience...All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand... and yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a window pane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.

George Orwell Why I Write: Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind (Penguin Books – Great Ideas) 2004 Ed. – pp. 4-10

Am almost feeling my health is back to normal now. Been trying to catch up on some things again, but still am finding I can only get so much done. Of late, even from before getting sick I've been having a hard time studying/keeping focused in general. Because I teach myself, I lack someone to motivate me or to encourage me to keep going - so I've been struggling. Prayers would appreciated. =7

Lately, I've been trying to get more out of my devotions but am still finding it hard because I only know what to do roughly. I mean I read the passage, prayer for understanding. But even that only gives me so much to take and use for the day. I want to buy some Bible Reference materials when I go to college and some Bible Hermeneutics books.

I've been reading Hebrews for NT and 2 Kings OT. Am having a difficult time disguising between the Northern and Southern kingdom at times because sometimes names repeat by their grandsons. If anyone knows a link which gives a diagram of the kingly lines of both kingdoms I would be grateful for it. I found this link: http://www.biblestudymanuals.net/kingdoms_of_Israel.htm - I encourage you to read it if you have any interest.


I have work today, so I don't know what I'm going to get done before than - might work some more on that cross-stitch project - the sooner it's done and over with the better - never again (time permitting)

Hope you are doing well, bye for now

Although I thought I was getting better I've still been ill since Wednesday. So I haven't got a whole lot done, but it has allowed me to get some of my cross-stitch done. Being sick hasn't given me much energy to do a whole lot. So my room is a mess, haven't kept up with my exercises, am behind on karate, haven't practiced piano as much.... o well? Haven't been using Paint.net or GIMP for a while either- kinda ran out of ideas. With what I know I only gets so far because I've been teaching myself which takes a lot longer. Plus, I don't have as much time to learn with it because I've been working more shifts, yet I'm thankful for the extra money I'm earning for college.

This is how far I've got on the Lord's Prayer in cross-stitch - I would never have done it if A) unless this person who asked me to do it was a friend of the family and B) if I had known how big it was: I finished all the green stitches:









Another food for thought that I have thought of posting on in the past but haven't got round to it. Have you ever spent the time and thought of how many variations of one song there have been? I know in church hymns there are special arrangements but have you ever heard a song that was the same lyrics but a different tune or melody that sounded just as good or better within 50 years - not just hundreds of years?


For instance, one my favorite songs when sung in variation (I don't really care for the oldest versions) is Somewhere Over the Rainbow:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0-um0pHTAg




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm5sUlOuJ0U





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19mDVt6q6Vg (copying Izzy's reworking of the song)





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSI0ZStEnfw (my favorite version)





Just makes me think. If songs that aren't Christian in origin that people sing that are saved or not can be this beautiful/inspiring don't we as Christians have a special commitment to fill in the gap with the songs we sing and write that are so devoted solely to God that they show His goodness and beauty to others?




Anyway take care dear readers, bye for now.

Several weeks ago I decided not to put up with little to no shifts. So I decided to do something about. Firstly I prayed that I would get some more shifts and then decided to take further action my talking to my manger in charge of shifts after emailing my store manager for extra shifts while also informing her that I had more flexibility for (when morning-night) I could work because I no longer had school.

What happened: God gave me more shift and I ended up also working every single day of the next week - The Lord be praised. Was given four shifts took an extra shift from someone else and on the Wednesday that I wasn't scheduled for Mcdonalds I did two gardening jobs (I use to be a busy gardener) for two different people.

This week I worked Monday, Tuesday, and part of today because after my brake I asked to leave after feeling very ill: migraine from not wearing my glasses soon enough, sore throat that I already had, feeling nauseous, and sore. So went home slept for two and an a half hours after taking two tablets of ibuprofen and than waking up - still sore but the fever left so I took two paracetamol (Tylenol equivalent) for the headache. I am feeling better now, just hope I don't feel like this again.

Was blessed when reading this morning Morning and Evening :

Ps 126:3


"The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad." --Psalm 126:3

Some Christians are sadly prone to look on the dark side of everything, and to dwell more upon what they have gone through than upon what God has done for them. Ask for their impression of the Christian life, and they will describe their continual conflicts, their deep afflictions, their sad adversities, and the sinfulness of their hearts, yet with scarcely any allusion to the mercy and help which God has vouchsafed them. But a Christian whose soul is in a healthy state, will come forward joyously, and say, "I will speak, not about myself, but to the honour of my God. He hath brought me up out of an horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings: and He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. The Lord hath done great things for me, whereof I am glad." Such an abstract of experience as this is the very best that any child of God can present. It is true that we endure trials, but it is just as true that we are delivered out of them. It is true that we have our corruptions, and mournfully do we know this, but it is quite as true that we have an all-sufficient Saviour, who overcomes these corruptions, and delivers us from their dominion. In looking back, it would be wrong to deny that we have been in the Slough of Despond, and have crept along the Valley of Humiliation, but it would be equally wicked to forget that we have been through them safely and profitably; we have not remained in them, thanks to our Almighty Helper and Leader, who has brought us "out into a wealthy place." The deeper our troubles, the louder our thanks to God, who has led us through all, and preserved us until now. Our griefs cannot mar the melody of our praise, we reckon them to be the bass part of our life's song, "He hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad."


that's all for now - thanks for reading