Introducing: My Man!

Back when I was a teenager, relationships and friendships were not completely christened until they became 'Facebook Official.' This was back before Facebook gave its users the ability to 'like' every photo. Instead, friends would leave nice comments to show their support - in the form of cyber gushing, oohs and awws, and whatever else.

So, to keep with social network prescriptions, my boyfriend and I made our internet debut this weekend. Since this blog is part of the internet, I figured that carrying over the announcements and officialities to my little neck of the universe would be a great idea.

So this is us. I am just going to call him Boyfriend for now.

And we have a great story.

Boyfriend and I met when we were both still in high school. We went through different high schools, and knew each other from attending the church youth group. I cannot remember why or how we first started talking, but I guarantee you that it was made possible by the wonderful world of MSN Messenger (a now obsolete 2000s reference that has been replaced by Skype and texting).

Over those years, we mostly chatted online, and acknowledged each other publically only when absolutely necessary (Boyfriend was pretty shy). Then, Boyfriend left for university. We continued to chat through his university years, going out for coffee on occasion when he was home on weekends.

Then I started my undergrad at Redeemer, and everything changed. We still chatted, but I remember finding myself more and more annoyed by him and his persistence to keep a friendship going. I hadn't realized he was interested in me until the summer when we went to see the movie 'Leatherheads' (starring Rene Zellweger and George Clooney) and honestly, I don't remember anything about the movie except that he held my hand and I was 19 years old and terrified.

And then, I pulled my favourite relationship move and ran far away. I remember not talking as much after that, and only going out for coffee once a year to stay in touch. The messages stopped. The texts stopped. And I seemed to be free to live my life. I thought that was what I wanted, and I guess in some ways I needed to spend my time 'living my life' at Redeemer.

There was a whole year where we did not speak to each other - or at least, I did not respond. 

But Boyfriend was faithful. He waited until the right moment to congratulate me on grad school, and to inquire if he could take me out (on a real date!!) before I left for two years again. I finally accepted after a few weeks of talking and catching up I realized that I was still terrified, but this time I couldn't run away emotionally. I guess I never really had, it simply took me a whole to figure out that a romance that had begun when I was a teenager was meant to continue.

Boyfriend and I always had a connection, but I was too young and too naive to realize that what we had was something more than friends. It always had been.

So on the warm June night of the date, he picked me up in a rebuilt yellow and black Ford Mustang and took me to dinner, for a walk, to our (incredibly) small town's fair, and finally to a campfire at his home where talked for six hours and shared our first kiss as a couple. 

The rest, as they say, is history.

Book Review: Immanuel's Veins by Ted Dekker

Ted Dekker is known for intense good versus evil confrontation thrillers that usually lend readers toward a male hero who seeks to defend the virtue of a young, beautiful woman. His heroes are strong, they are quick, they are torn between the metaphysical realities of God and love and physical restraints of humanity and sin. And honestly, the plots become sorely repetative.

I had to take a break from reading Ted Dekker. It isn't that he is a bad author. On the contrary. I think is Circle "Trilogy" is one of the better novel packs I have read in the last 10 years (man, I just dated myself...), but he has typecasted his characters, writing what he knows - strong hero, blushing bride, good vs evil for the epic battle of the heart, and there is usually a redemption story. It just got to the point where I felt Dekker had fallen into a more riveting and slightly less obnoxious [male] version of Christian romance novels. Yes, that is a dangerous claim to make.

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I knew what I was getting into when I opened this book. But only to an extent. 

See, Immanuel's Veins did not, in any way at all, keep me interested. I read it for one reason, and one reason only: Dekker played with Russian history and folklore, and as a history and fairy story nutcase, I bit. The characters were not interesting to me. They were typical caricatures for a Dekker novel, and I was disappointed because I had hoped for more. Disappointment number one.

The characters all ended up in this creepy gothic castle where this beastly vampire-esque Vlad posed as the super lover, revealing himself to be the evil foil to our hero, Toma. But it got really weird when Dekker started weaving in Biblical mythology of Nephilim (Genesis 6) with his gothic Russian set plot. For his fictional purposes, Dekker suggested that the Nephilim were wicked creatures who came to be known in modern literature and story as ...wait for it...vampires. Disappointment number two.

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[If you need to know more about who the Nephilim are, click here. It will take you to a really helpful Wikipedia page outlining the two scholarly views on who the Nephilim are...and you'll notice that 'vampire' isn't on the list.]

I can understand why Dekker did it, though. Immanuel's Veins was published during the final stretch of the Twilight mania. It was released in the USA in 2010, the same year Summit Entertainment put out Eclipse, the third installment of the Twilight movie saga. Further, interlacing Nephilim mythology with Vampire folklore opened up the 'paid in blood, cleansed in baptismal water' theme that Dekker likes so much. After all, how else was he going to get away with seduction scenes and true love at the point of a savior (without it sounding too much like a Bella/Edward/Jacob situation)?

I have to give Dekker credit where credit is due. He wrote the story he is good at. Repetative and anti-climactic as it is becoming at this point in his literary career, it does sell. What worries me, though, is that Dekker won't ever take chances on something new. He is no Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace, or Julian Barnes. He knows this. But he has the potential to be. I'm tired of reading books by Dekker and reading the same story over and over and over again. His peak was the Circle series. I hope he finds something to redeem his writers career, because I believe he shows promise. 

Was Immanuel's Veins the best piece of English Literature that I've read? No. But that's okay. I'm just glad his vampires didn't sparkle in the sunlight.

The Love Epidemic

"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith, goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self control; and to self control, perseverence; and to perseverence, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our LORD Jesus Christ."
- 2 Peter 1:5-8

"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the LORD forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love which binds them together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace."
- Colossians 3:12-15

These two sets of verses tell us how to live.

Which is fine.

Except that, the most common question I get here at MBC is this:

how do i care about other people if i don't care about myself? 


That, at it's very core, is a question of this struggling generation. This generation of teenagers have not been taught two things:
1) Self worth.
2) Discipline. 


In essence, what they ask is directly in line with a commandment of Jesus.


love your neighbour as yourself.


This implies you must love yourself. But this begs two other questions.
1) What is love?
2) What happens when an entire generation of teenagers aren't being taught how to love themselves?


And be wary. I don't for a second suggest that this love is something superficial. In fact, the Bible points to love that is selfless. See 1 Corinthians 13. 


But those two passages demand we put on love. We must love.


how do we love if we haven't been taught what love is?


Food for thought, I guess.
This is what this generation of teenagers is facing. 


Word of the Day: Love


Quote of the Day: "Love is most perfectly fulfilled when we bear the hurts and sufferings of others." Richard J. Foster