人生行路 — The Journey of Life

It didn’t really dawn on me that today is the last Sunday of 2007, but the chaplain mentioned it at the worship service tonight. Time to reflect, but in a different way than I usually do.

Rereading Joshua Harris’ Boy Meets Girl last night uncovered a way of thinking I’ve been stuck in ever since giving my life to Christ. Simply put, I tend not to forgive myself. Okay, let’s get more specific than that. I don’t like to forgive myself.

Harris calls my bluff, though. It’s a form of reverse pride. My refusal to forgive myself is me telling God that my standards are higher than His. Let’s face it: God’s standards are pretty darn high, which makes it even more amazing that He offered His Son to undergo anguish, torture, and death on a cross so that we could meet that standard.

With that said, here’s a very short summary of 2007.

• political blogging
• mall preachers
• reaching out
• struggling with repeated sins
• leading Midshipmen
• ship selection
• 24/7 prayer
• goodbyes
• commissioning
• MacBook
• stashed life
• more goodbyes
• legal officer school
• re-meeting an old friend
• final goodbyes
• flight
• stashed in Sasebo
• leading a flight detail to reporting aboard the ship in [location, sorry].
• adjustment
• Sasebo
• bike trips
• apartment hunt
• having to earn respect
• conning
• OOD inport
• small boat adventures
• camraderie
• personal wars
• finding a church
• first guitar
• firefighting school
• The Lighthouse
• connections
• humiliation
• underway
• diplomacy
• shore patrol
• small boat crush hazard
• more conning
• figuring out how to lead worship
• NJPs
• powers of attorney
• dirty looks
• keeping the fervor
• inport
• shore patrol
• another guitar
• The Lighthouse, again!
• Sasebo
• complacence
• screwing up
• mercy
• grace
• more leading worship
• screwing up
• leading worship solo ashore (tonight)

What a ride. I felt like my worship tonight was something of a culmination of these things and more. I don’t know what’ll happen one year, one day, or one minute after I post this. What I know is that God is there, and that His Son’s blood really makes it all worth it.

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts! Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.

~Isaiah 6:1-7 ESV

Wow.

Today’s Sunday edition of Stars and Stripes reports that Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-TN), introduced H.R. 4497 earlier this month looking to end gambling on U.S. military bases overseas. The bill’s short title is Warrant Officer Aaron Walsh Stop DOD-Sponsored Gambling Act, so named for an Army Warrant Officer who committed suicide over a gambling addiction that the military apparently never treated.

This looks mostly like a fundamental misunderstanding of why the armed forces provide slot machines and alcohol on base: it keeps the problems on base as opposed to out among foreign nationals. Nobody’s trying to ban alcohol or tobacco from military exchanges or bars, and those combined kill far more of our people and administrative resources than gambling. If he didn’t get the treatment, figure out why and address the issue there.

There’s a good amount of talk going around concerning 7th Fleet liberty restrictions, but let me clarify something here.

I’ve been a DIVO for almost six months now (arr, salty Ensign!!), and I’ve never signed a liberty plan. Period. So no, they’re not around here, so stop assuming that they are just because we’re in Seventh Fleet.

The blame the DIVO portion on the second page of the thread, however, is priceless.

ht: Fewl

Speaking of Hitler, The news world is all over Will Smith right now for comments he made concerning the good intentions of Hitler. Roger Kimball looks to have the best wrap-up that I’ve looked at. In essence, the possibly disturbing part of his comment is not the historical truth that Hitler thought he was doing good things, but that it needs “reprogramming.”

To put this into a Navy perspective, our current policy for extremist behavior/attitudes is simply to kick the individual out. Other than occasional GMT training, not much is said about extremism. Addressing of general attitudes, however, does have to be addressed on a regular basis.

Thus comes into play a challenge to freedom of thought in the military. Unlike within the general public or at a university (one hopes), we do reeducate. We expect sailors to harbor certain attitudes, but where is that limit? Do we stop at honor, courage, and commitment, or do we go farther in? And how far do the core values go in in the first place?

Perhaps more importantly, are the core values valued at all levels rather than being something dictated from on high?

To be investigated further…

Something’s had me a bit riled up in my mind lately, namely the philosophy put out by equal opportunity folks that all ideas, cultures, etc. are equal in merit.

Long ago, a guy named Hitler thought it was okay to kill innocent people in the name of making the state a stronger entity.  Earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court thought that free blacks should not have the same rights as whites.

The potential problems that this poses involves more than the superiority of the idea that ends up on top.  Not only does it negate any notion of societal progress (which EO folks would be the first to say has been made), it negates itself.  If person A says that all ideas are equal, and person B says that not all ideas are equal, person A’s philosophy then says that person B’s philosophy is of equal merit.

Yes, this has been thought up already, but some people don’t seem to understand it.  Let’s take this to a Navy level:  Ensign Retard has an idea.  His LDO department head says it’s a stupid idea.  Ensign Retard counters that both ideas have equal merit.

I don’t intend to put this to the test.

I screwed up today big time. There’s no words to express how messed up it really was. I’m a wretch, and may I always be reminded of that without actually having to screw up.

Meanwhile for the past few weeks, God’s been telling me to fast and I’ve been ignoring it. Time to make my best attempt to make it up, even though I’ll inevitably fall far short.

Meanwhile, I picked up the newest albums from the David Crowder Band and KJ-52. “Do Yo Thang” just might be one of the funniest songs I’ve ever heard.

Navy Times all over Kitty Hawk like a cheap Hong Kong suit

Other than the whole Hong Kong rejection deal, the Navy Times has had Kitty Hawk in the news twice on morale issues. First was some sort of movie ban. The second is an article on individual liberty plans (ILPs), which according to local rumor here in Sasebo have been the trend in Yokosuka for quite a while now. IT2 “Jim” has more detail in multiple posts.

Sasebo shooting suspect kills himself

The big news Friday night for personnel on duty was the very real possibility that they’d be stuck on base for the weekend while Sasebo police try to find a Japanese man who came into a sports club (gym) with a shotgun and started shooting at people. Two dead, six injured. He killed himself outside a Catholic church. One article which I can’t find right now speculated that organized crime was creeping into Sasebo from Fukuoka, but this looks like an isolated case of psychological illness.

Naval Academy ex-Chaplain gets 12 years confinement (10 suspended) in plea agreement

I couldn’t find much detail on the sentence, but perhaps I could get the record of trial on this one and find out. Nonetheless, the LA Times seemed to have the most detail available, including a remark where his defense counsel says he’ll probably serve 18 months. One assumes that the journalists completely skipped over the term “dismissal.” Newsweek, meanwhile, commits the cardinal sin of calling a midshipman, “cadet.”