if you can read this, you're literate

...is forgiveness.

there is nothing more you can receive from somebody.

and i've always asked for forgiveness. and always wanted to feel like i was forgiven.

but what i really need to feel like is a sinner forgiven.

if i just went through life feeling forgiven, it doesn't mean a whole lot. it's only when i realize i've done something wrong, but i've been forgiven that i know what unfailing love is.

Posted by erichapman at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments

evil is bad, mmmkay?

i just threw Lord of the Rings into the 'ol dvd player on a boring saturday night. i really really love these movies. j.r.r. tolkein was some sort of creative genius.

but everyone is always looking for that "message" in LOTR. the common misconception is that it's about WWII. there is a lot of compraisons between characters and plotline and soforth. (hitler being sauron and the huge battles of many different lands combining being the allied powers).

here's where my innergeek pokes out... Tolkein wrote much of LOTR and his other stories in the battles of WWI. supposedly he was even drawing maps in the trenches of warfare.

ANYway... a war may have modeled the story, but the real "message" here is much simpler.

a huge evil power was taken out by the most unexpected of the smallest of creatures.

and you know WHY??? because they were good people. and they kept on pushing through all the evil surrounding them.

and after the good little creatures were at their wits' end... evil put an end to itself. it was b/c the one ring was evil that it was destroyed. a jealous fight destroyed a keeper of the ring and took the ring finger of its other keeper.

and i think THAT'S the "message" j.r.r. tolkein was giving us.

if you're faced with evil, stick to your guns, and eventually, you will be rewarded and the evil will eventually give way to good.

no go laugh at me for being a LOTR freak.

Posted by erichapman at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments

i started gun shopping a couple weeks ago. i just want something to play with on the weekends at the firing range with my friends or, God forbid, home protection.

well i've gotten a lot of input from people in making my decision. and i've noticed something...

people that like guns are WEIRD.

there is one guy in particular at work who will only talk to me about guns now. he thinks i'm interested in every gun he's ever owned and thinks that his opinion as a gun nut will somehow affect what i might buy.

i told him i like walthers b/c they look cool. he says that doesn't matter. his exact words were, "you're talking about a piece of machinery that fires a lead slug. it doesn't matter what it looks like."

well i have news... YES IT DOES!!! look man, james bond had a walther... that makes it cool. dirty harry had the .44 magnum. those are cool guns, used by cool guys.

this sparked something in me, though. something not related to firearms.

there are LOTS of people out there, and of those LOTS, we're not always going to be fascinated by what people have to say. maybe sometimes in life, we just have to nod our head and fake it so we don't hurt people's feelings. so for now, i pretend to be interested in every detail of firearm ownership, and the guy at work feels like he's helping out a young guy with a new gun obesession.

(blogger's note... i am not now, nor will i ever become a gun nut)

Posted by erichapman at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments

i came up with that right after i did something stupid.

what do you think?

and what was the stupid thing i did?

doesn't matter.

that's what not to focus on here.

it's the wisdom. focus there. have sight, and be a visionary. wisdom.

and being smart enough to know we're not smart enough.

Posted by erichapman at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

to paraphase...

"i'm tired. so tired. tired of havin' sex. so tired."

i feel that way... maybe not in the literal sense, but at least in the paraphrased sense...

i'm tired of impurity in my life. i'm tired of the attacks on my soul to make me slip and hit my chin in the dirt.

there are obsticles in life that seem impassable. and there are paths on earth that can't be traveled.

but in life's journey, every obsticle can be removed. -Possessing faith the size of a mustard seed, they shall say to the mountains: "Be removed and cast into the sea."

have faith and believe that your mountains will be removed. and if faith moves mountains, it will remove the root you keep triping on.

Posted by erichapman at 6:32 AM | Permalink | Comments

i just saw saw 2 last night. and it was pretty out there.

yeah, it might not be realistic. but i don't think that's the point. it's fun to get scared. and, as much as the media would have us believe that gory movies destroy society and make little kids bring guns to school... it's still fun for people of appropriate age and maturity to get grossed out by a dude getting hit in the back of his skull with a bat with nails through it. (and then to watch another actress try to pull it out!!!)

it's entertainment. get over it. and if you're going to try these things you see in the movies... then you shouldn't be allowed to watch movies.

not once that i've played "Grand Theft Auto" did i think, "wow, i REALLY wanna steal a motorcycle and jump it across rooftops!"

so, if you want to see some blood, if you want to cringe, if you want to twist your mind around a plot, go see saw 2. after you've seen the original saw, though. (there's a lot of referencing)

but don't see it if you're going to try to punish society by putting a few people through trials in order to teach them lessons.

it's just not going to work. b/c it's just for entertainment.

Posted by erichapman at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments

nobody's perfect. least of all me. i'm constantly reminded of that, but it's the reprecussions of this imperfectness that is sometimes hard to deal with.

i.e. we're not perfect, so we lock our keys in our car in the freezing rain. most of the time, when we're not locked out, we say to ourselves "hey, i'm not perfect."

but when it comes to dealing with that, we get mad at ourselves for not being perfect.

ever got angry for locking yourself out of your car?

"It is true that sometimes God’s will incorporates our failures."

yeah, that's another john fischer quote... big whoop you wanna fight about it???

Posted by erichapman at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments