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First try, too. 222 clicks in 30 seconds.

Update: 228, last night – 255 just now, after some rest. Hah!

See, I’m doing this game project. The great and powerful Fringespace. I love it, I really do. I’m just getting sort of frustrated with the process right now. We supposedly have this really big team, and all of that… but only a few of us are doing anything. I can live with that, I suppose – but it makes getting the gumption up for doing something on it hard, sometimes. Especially when I could be doing apologetics! As you probably know, I hang out in several chat channels – I average 7-8, on a normal day. I hang out in James White’s #prosapologian and #apologetics, on Starlink IRC – #apologetics on Undernet, #hard-light and #fringespace, on EsperNet, #btrl on another server, and #gamedev, on another.

I get to engage in some awesome apologetic discussions on starlink and undernet, constantly – and that is just so much mroe fulfilling than working on a game, most times. Although, really, I want to get this game done. I’m torn, and I’m a bit guilty that I’ve neglected the game – but I can’t stay guilty, because I’m doing something very profitable!

What’s a gamer/apologist to do? I’m going to keep working, but it’s hard to stay focused when there could be an awesome conversation about the deep things of God going on, and I know I’m missing it. I also feel guilty for neglecting my baby here, this blog, for that game – but it’s a very rewarding project, too. I’m just going to have to divide my time up wisely, so that I am doing everything I can, with the gifts I’ve been given. I know I’m good at this – and I want to show that Christians can do things like this as well as anyone can – but I don’t want to neglect God by doing so.

Hence, my ennui.

I decided she was getting a bit moldy, so I’m airing her out, drying her out, and opening back up. For a little while, at least.

Funny how those two first years of marriage, a baby, and the like can derail you 😀

In any case, I’m still working on Fringespace, still hanging out in #prosapologian, and hanging out with my wonderful family.

Which reminds me. You remember this post? Well, God answered the prayer I made, all that time ago – He was the Father to my little girl, when I couldn’t be – and He brought her to me. She lives with me, now. We’ll see how it goes from here on, but we have her until at least the end of the school year. There are very few things in life that bring me as much joy as just being able to look at my little girl again, whenever I want. It’s been something I’ve dreamed of, and prayed for for so long, I keep wondering if I’m dreaming.

God is good. Other than that, things are going fairly well. Love my church, and our Sunday School class. We’ve started a family bible study, and host it every other week at our house. Had all 6 kids at once, for Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Great time, blessed time.

Maybe I’ll start posting more often. Maybe. Oh, I fixed some things about my template that have been bugging me for a few months. The funny thing is, that’s when I visit, most often, is to fix something aobut the blog I never post on. Go figure.

May you have a blessed, happy, and joyful thanksgiving with family, and friends!

So… I haven’t posted jack here in a good long while.

Here’s why.

1. We have a baby due within a month.
2. Our kids play soccer now – which consumes the better part of 4 nights/week.
3. I’ve started a game modification project.

Rebekah is due November 7th, but my wife has a history of delivering early. She’s VERY much hoping that trend will continue 😀

Soccer is… wild. I’m assistant coach on both teams, and it’s the time sink of doom. it’s fun, but exhausting.

The mod can be found at Fringespace.org.

So, umm… I’m busy. Yup. Blogging may or may not resume in the near future. I’m going to be severely hit or miss for the forseeable future, in any case.

It can’t teach you how long you’re supposed to cook a hot pocket for.

I looked.

Can anyone find that? If you do, I’ll give you a cookie. I just guessed. It worked. However, I’m jaded now.

I’ll never think about the internet the same again.

Update: I was given an address by two separate people in IRC moments ago.

So, I guess only hotpockets.com leaves me disillusioned.

(Thanks to Sakeri and Stark!)

No, it’s not about how long it’s been since I posted.

It’s about my daughter, Kaylie. I’ve mentioned her before – in this post. She’s now 7 years old. I haven’t seen her since November, 2001. Not once. I hadn’t talked to her since she was 3 years old.

I finally talked to her today. It was, ultimately, bittersweet. When you reach the day you’ve been yearning for, for years – and she speaks, offhandedly, about “her daddy”- and she isn’t talking about you; a little piece of you dies. A very well-buried piece, but a piece that hasn’t surfaced in a long time. You can kid yourself – you can be told that she calls someone else daddy – but until you hear it, you can lie to yourself.

I can’t lie to myself anymore. It hurts. It hurts so badly that I’d like to just curl up on the bed and got to sleep until morning. It’s only 6:30. It doesn’t matter. I still want to. Writing helps, sometimes. It lets you exorcise some of the things you can’t get your mind off of, and get back to a semblance of normalcy. I don’t know if it will help, but I might as well try.

Don’t get me wrong. I was ecstatic that I finally got to talk to her. I still am, really. It’s just heartbreaking. It’s that sucker punch that you don’t see coming, can’t fend off, and can’t escape. I’m just rambling now, I guess.

I’ll have to live with it. I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to enjoy it. I just have to love her.

I always have, always will, and do so with all my heart. One day I’ll hear her call me daddy again. Whether here, or in heaven, it will happen.

Yeah, I’m being a bit transparent today. I’ll live. I’ll even smile, later. I have a wife who loves me, and children around me.

There’s always that piece of my heart that resides wherever she does, though. She’s my firstborn, and her daddy’s little girl. Even if she doesn’t know it. That’ll have to be enough for me. God knows. God loves me. God is merciful. God have mercy on me, a sinner.

Maranathah.

I haven’t posted since March? That’s unreal.

Well, actually, I have been looking. At my blog, at it’s lack of posts … at my lack of inspiration for posts … my lack of time to write aforementioned posts … at the fact that I have two more kids for the summer …

Basically, to be honest, I just haven’t felt like it. To be brutally honest, I didn’t have anything worth posting about, apologetically. This is, after all, an apologetics blog. Well…

I don’t know if I’m going to keep it that way. I’m thinking, very hard, at making it a general blog. Just stuff I feel like posting. It may be of interest to some of you, it may not. Believe it or not, I have a great deal of interests which don’t involve apologetics. In fact, I’ve been indulging in those the better part of the spring and summer. Mostly spending time with my kids, playing video games (which, I’ll have you know, blogging severely curtailed), and hanging out with my wife – which blogging also curtailed. In the meantime, my wife has become quite the blogging maven.

She’s up for finalist in the Blogs of Beauty Awards, in the category of “Best Artistic Content”. As a photoblogger, primarily (at least, that was what I built her blog for, to begin with!), that’s the category she’s most excited about. Incidentally, she also was nominated for Best Contemporary Design… (To be honest, I don’t think it’s finalist material, so I’m not disappointed. Just as an aside.. I designed it, don’t think I’m dogging her out :D)

To get back to the original topic, though… I think I’m just going to start posting. Whether it’s about nothing in particular, or some things you may not be used to hearing about from me… I’ll be blogging again. I’m thinking – just thinking, mind you, about just using Vox for what it says – apologetics – and reclaiming my own blog for, well… myself.

We’ll see.

So, let’s catch up. Since I blogged last… I spent a bunch of time on IRC, meeting new people. Got bored of that, after a while. I’ve picked up my two year old from her mom’s, and her big brother, and we’ve had a great time! It’s also killed any inclination I had to ignore kids for online chatting. I only get to see them for two months. I have ten months to play on the computer. My hair is probably 3 inches longer, and now is starting to inch down my back, instead of just “respectably” hippie, at my neck. I’ve installed probably 150 more garage doors (including one for my mom and dad). I’ve turned a year older (June 30th) – I’m now 28. What else? Otherwise… I’ve read about 100 books since March – probably more. I’ve restarted – and dropped – two MMORPG’s. (Anarchy Online and Shattered Galaxy)

Oh, and the most important thing – found out whether the baby is a boy, or girl. Girl.

Things I haven’t done:

Checked the entire Vox Aggregator compulsively.
Read more than 5 blogs – in a week.
Shuffle my blog’s design – at all. Ok, well… until tonight.

It’s not that I don’t like blogging. I really do. I just had it in my head that I MUST, if I blog, write something ultimately compelling, astute, and… umm.. apologetical.

I’m sorry, but I guess I’m just not up to it anymore. Not since I’ve been married, at least. Single guys have nothing but time. I started this blog as a single guy, and I took that time. You wouldn’t BELIEVE the time I spent on some of the content in the archives. It’s insane. I’m just not going to do it anymore. I’ll post, but it’ll be about normal, everyday stuff.

I came to a realization. We are to be prepared to give an answer – that is correct. However. You answer someone who asked you.

I’ll answer, should someone ask. I have, several times, since March. I may even write about them. I have one in mind when I say this, that i might share with you, later. Theoretical knowledge just doesn’t compete with practical application, though. Especially when you’re sacrificing family time for blog time.

Well, my wife is talking to a high school friend who also blogs – and I’m running out of juice. I still have to work tomorrow!

So, glad to see you again, and my im’s are all the same. I may even log in to them tomorrow!

See you later.

I found out early last week that… my wife is pregnant!

No, we don’t know whether it’s a boy or a girl. She’s like… 3-4 weeks along. So, no idea.

So, needless to say, lover of children that I am… I’m ecstatic. Beyond, actually. I really don’t have much to say, really, other than that we’re very excited.

To top it off, the day *before* that, my ex-wife (that I haven’t heard from in years – literally) contacts me, out of the blue, after searching for me on the internet (finally) – to tell me about our daughter – who I also haven’t seen or heard from in years. She’s now seven. She’s adorable! I got a picture of her last night, and she’s absolutely precious.

No details yet, on when I get to see her – but, I will get to keep my youngest all this summer. All I can say is that God is really, really good to this former prodigal son.

I took some heat from Mumon earlier, in the comments to my recent post about humor.

The problem, of course, did not revolve around the central issue of the post. Mumon usually tries to take a look from another angle, that I didn’t cover. He’s right though. I didn’t cover it, and that was for a reason. This post. The last one spoke about what was not funny. This post, on the other hand, I’ll talk about what IS funny – as well as address the questions Mumon raises.

First, Mumon’s questions/objections.

To start with, he zeroed in on the NASB’s slightly misleading use of the word “silly”, in Ephesians 5:4. The King James uses ‘foolish”, while the newer ESV does the same. I say only “slightly”, because the word silly doesn’t mean what he thinks it does. To quote Inigo Montoya… “You keep using that word… I do not think it means what you think it means”.

The word “foolish” has a much more negative connotation (in slang) than “silly” – it also reflects an attitude of conscious rejection of it’s antithesis, rather than a playful, bantering fun-loving spirit. (However, in formal English, they are synonyms)

Silly, in standard English, can be a term of mild disapproval – someone who tends to frivolity, for instance. But it has a more derisive meaning ,as well. “a lack of wisdom or good sense; foolish”. To lack wisdom, by any standard, is simply not a good thing. It does not mean “having fun” – it means “lacking wisdom”, in the formal sense of the word. Now, in modern English slang, silly means simply to be playful. This is not the meaning of the word in the original Greek, however.

The word, in greek, is Morologia – which means “foolish talking”. However, it’s not as ambigious as all that. The root words for this compound word are lego and moroß.

lego is, basically, “to speak”. moroß is foolish – or, impious/godless. It’s not precisely blasphmeous, per se – that is covered in another word in that verse – but, it is clearly “foolish” – as in lacking wisdom – that is addressed. Unwise speech.

So, I’ll leave it there.

Secondly, he was a bit of a smart aleck.

To my question: Why can’t I keep from laughing at what is crass, or ribald?

He answered:

You answered the question yourself: because evidently, you find them funny.

My question, I suppose, is different – and more to the point. Why do I find them “funny”? The incongruity of certain situations are, indeed, funny – the subject matter, however, is not. It’s not right, and it’s not what I should be laughing at. The answer is simple. I’ve let myself be trained, by repetition, that the crass and ribald, when related in the form of a joke, are “ok”. While if I heard them related as a story, I would not think so. In the slightest. In other words… you missed the entire point of the post. It was relating something that I’ve rediscovered about our culture – that if something we would consider to be wrong is covered over by the veneer of humor… it’s suddenly “ok”. How many comedies have set records for the most risque scenes… by making jokes out of them? How is it George Carlin makes his money again? Oh, yeah. Taking everything people consider wrong, and making jokes out of them. Nah, noone really does that, do they? Pssst. That is the bedrock for 90% of today’s humor on TV and movies – just media in general.

That isn’t ok, and it isn’t funny. It’s a sham. It’s camoflauge for sin, using the pattern of humor to hide it. That’s the tricky part. In other words, it’s possible to take your sense of humor more seriously than your dislike for sin – and your duty to imitate God, by being Holy, as He is Holy. THAT is the problem.

This is a key difference – and why I’m a Buddhist: if one can be mindful of the intent and attitude behind one’s activities, one doesn’t need them to be prescribed or proscribed by anyone else.

And I might also add that certain teishos- Dharma commentaries- contain some of the 7 words you can’t say on TV, and to good effect.

You can be mindful of the same in Christianity – but you cannot attempt to justify wrongdoing by hiding behind “oh, I meant it as a joke”. That’s why we’re told not to do it. So, I suppose you’re right.

That is a key difference, and not one I’d recommend.

And lastly…

You’ll be “free from the body of this death” soon enough; I hope you appreciate what you sense while you’re around, but mindfully…

I know; your mileage varies…

There is plenty of humor in the world without resorting to humor which portrays sin as “just a laugh”.

Which is the point of this post.

So, after that long preamble…

Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny.

Jokes about sin are easy. Everyone sins, and does it daily. Everyone wants to laugh at their own sin, and laugh at others. Otherwise, we’d have to take them seriously, wouldn’t we? Much easier to just laugh at them, isn’t it?

Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies they have already found a ridiculous side to it.

If you treat your sin as if it is a joke, pretty soon you’ll treat it as a joke, too. Imagine that. Repetition becoming habit? The devil, you say!

But, seriously now.

The joke – the humor – the fun… all of that is completely satisfactory. All of that is completely normal, and as much a part of human existence as any other could be. It’s the subject matter that, well.. matters. Paul says this:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

Now, contrast that with Titus 2:

Likewise urge the young men to be sensible; in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach, so that the opponent will be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us.

Get the picture? It’s like momma always said: If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Except, in this case… it’s “if you can’t laugh at something nice – don’t laugh at all.”

That doesn’t mean don’t laugh. It means don’t laugh at things you shouldn’t laugh at.

What are things you can laugh at? The same things most people laugh at. The absurdities of life. The funny things your kids do. The funny things you do. When I say funny, I mean those things that strike you as absurd – as unlikely – as, well, funny. Your dad wearing a bucket on his head, and talking like Darth Vader. Your kids telling you all about an imaginary friend named “cup” – because he just made him as he was talking to you, and that was the first thing he saw.

Life. Life is fun. Life is, thus, funny. Sin, however, is not life. Sin is death. Sin is what caused death, is causing death, and is the cause of all death. Sin is NOT funny. God, even, is funny. He was pretty hilarious dresing down Jonah for worrying more about a pitiful plant than the city of Ninevah, for example. Or when, instead of striking down Nebuchadnezzar for his hubris in declaring himself to be a god… he struck down his mind, and reduced the most powerful man in the world to a grass-chomping quadruped.

That’s funny. Or, saving his three favorites from a fiery death in that same king’s furnace… and not even a hair on their head is singed, and their clothes look brand new. It’s strange, it’s not exactly normal. It’s funny. Imagine the look on Nebuchadnezzar’s face, when he sees these three young men he condemmed to die, walking out this insanely hot furnace. The look HAD to be priceless. Or, the look on Jonah’s face, when he realizes he’s been vomited up by a whale on the shores of Assyria – exactly where God told him to go in the first place. Just imagine that mental picture. Jonah shudders to his feet, amazed to be alive, and looks up and down the beach. Looks at himself. Looks towards Ninevah. Oh, man. That look must have been great. Hah!

We are funny beings. We think time is ours. We get ticked when we are inconvenienced, and we have “lost time”. It wasn’t ours to begin with. We get annoyed when things take too long, or we’re “cheated” out of time we “deserved”. It’s ridiculous. Laughing at ourselves is key, sometimes.

Laugh. Have fun. Be joyful. Rejoice in what God has given you, and what amuses you. Just don’t be amused at things which have no business being amusing.

Get it? Good.