This Was Supposed to be My Last Post, EVER!!... (for 2009), It Just Became My Very First Post, EVER!!... (for 2010)

Here we are! The end of another year. 2009... So, how was it for you?

Well, never mind that... Here we are! The beginning of another year.

Let's see if we have any freedoms left at the end of it.

I'm going to see if I can power my way through the entire Bible and see how long it takes me. This is a goal I have at the beginning of every year, & every year I seem to lose my focus. Perhaps with the aid of this blog I will make a more thorough attempt.

I am going to skip & come back to Genesis. Like I say, I have this goal in mind every year. Consequentially, I think I have read all the way through Genesis at least half a dozen times (it is always somewhere after Genesis that my goal becomes bogged down in daily minutia. So instead I will begin in Exodus... so there.

BTW, Welcome to 2010! We encourage to enjoy going through this year & be sure to notify your year passing attendants if you need anything. An extra beverage; a blanket; again, thank you for flying 2010, please keep your seats and trays in their upright & locked positions until we have achieved level flight & have been notified by the pilot.

Foundations

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of all knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. --Pro 1:7 (NIV).

It was not always this way. There was a time when I was not concerned about from where thought originates, whether my own or someone else's. Roughly a dozen years ago I came to know the Lord and am now convicted with the belief that God is the standard bearer for all ethics and philosophical thought. Without God, we would have no conception of right and wrong. Sound incredible? How can we know what is right or wrong? Does our morality derive from the shifting sand of our emotions?; from very intelligent people?; God is clearly the basis of ethics and morality. For a better treatment of this, read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis; essentially Lewis demonstrates that our morality is absolute and comes from somewhere outside of ourselves.

Built on the idea of God establishing our morality is the premise that God loves humanity as a whole, and as individuals. Two Scripture passages support both claims. From the NIV:

John 3:16 -- "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Luke 15:4-7 -- "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents that over ninety nine righteous persons who do not need to repent."

God loves humanity, and he loves us as individual people. For what reason did he save us? To be slaves? or to be free?

Gal 5:1 -- "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

2 Cor 3:17 -- "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

There are other Scripture references that support the concept of freedom, and I would interchangeably use the word 'liberty.' But even without the aid of Scripture, search your own soul and spirit. When you search the purer chambers of your heart. Has not God instilled into the the heart of man a yearning to be free? If this is not the case, why is slavery considered such an evil blotch upon history? Why do prisons need walls or guards? Why have numerous people groups throughout history, held under tyranny, left their homeland in search of a life of liberty in a country not their own?

Liberty! Freedom! Particularly individual liberty & freedom, is a precious, desirable & valuable commodity. Problematically, it is very easy to take liberty for granted. While it is a natural & God given right, it is a commodity that needs to be fought for and protected, otherwise it can and will be lost. Although a cliche', it nevertheless holds true: Freedom is not free, its price is vigilance. Once lost, getting it back is increasingly difficult. Those who seek power & control are as fervent about destroying our freedom as those who fought for it are about keeping it.

Merry Christmas & for Crying Out Loud... God Bless!

It's officially Christmas, 2009 here in the mountain time zone, so by george, merry Christmas, everyone! & God bless you for the New Year as well. Since this is the time for stopping from the busy schedule & expressing appreciation for our blessings, I just want to express my appreciation for all of my family & friends. I don't always treat those closest to me as well as I should, but just know, if any of y'all cross paths with my blog here, that you are appreciated. Mind you, to the best of my knowledge, in my family there are no war heroes, or brilliant scientists, but on whole the people who have comprised my relatives have been pretty decent folks all around. Of course every family has it's black sheep and rabble rouser, but again, all things considered, most of my kin have walked an acceptable narrow path. That's all I'm going to say about that for the moment...

I am continuing my quest to turn this blogging repository a place for audio blogging as well. I may be experiencing a small amount of success, but at the same time I still have a ways to go before that is realized. Of course I am sort of presuming at the moment that I will be able to load audio files to this site. Perhaps that is not as easy as I think. We'll see...

Soon I plan on blogging on the foundation of my philosophy. If you would like a hint, well, my foundation starts with God. Wow! What a revelation that is! At any rate, I will start with God and build from there on my next post.

Thoughts on Fear & Failure...

As I'm having a beer with my good friend, Roland, we are addressing fear in general. I won't pretend to speak for anyone but myself, but fear is a HUGE inhibitor to success. Fear keeps us from going where God wants to lead us, therefore we miss out on a lot of God's blessings by succumbing to the fears that some ungodly source has put into our path. Specifically, more to the point, our main fear is a fear of failure. That what ever enterprise we undertake will lead to failure & that we'll be left broken along the way. Remember that God wants us to succeed in what we set out to do. The crazy thing about this cycle is that it is failure that is our best teacher. While failure is very undesirable, we learn our most valuable lessons through it. We will fail, & we may fail more than we think we should. But it is failure that prepares us for success. There are other valuable lessons that come through failure, but the main point is, we should learn, or me rather, I should learn to not fear, perhaps even embrace failure, then I will not feel like I am hindering God's will in my life.

Nuts & Bolts of the P.C.

Okay, so here is my update for December 18, 2009.

Have you ever been faced with your own failure? Well, it is staring at me in the face as we speak (I guess we aren't actually... you know what I mean). For over a week now I have been trying to set myself up on this blog talk radio site. I have scheduled a show for myself to perform 3 or 4 times now. Each time the show gets close, I don't feel like I'm adaquately prepared to do it, so I reschedule it. I'll set the show for 30 minutes and then I'll think, I won't be able to ramble for 30 minutes, then I'll set the show for 15 minutes. Then I think I'll set it for 30 minutes the next day. You get the picture. Point is, each time the show gets close, a spirit of fear grips me and I feel the need to conquer this fear very, very badly. So I will just have to invest an insane amount of prep time for this 30 minute show in order to conquer this fear. I've listened to some of these other shows & I see that some of these other hosts will come on and say, "I'll play some music now until we get some callers." Wowieee!! What an impressive show you have there... Sorry, just a little venting..

So why the title of 'The Philosopher Custodian?' Well, for starters, I am a custodian. That is my "job," at the moment, without wanting to make it a "career." While I am a custodian, I am also, when enrolled in classes, an English major. Mind you I only make it to class when I can afford it, & I haven't been able to afford it for some time now. But I still love to read. I love to learn; and I always try to carry a teachable spirit with me wherever I am. When I am working, I like considering my place among the world & universe. I would call that God's will, others would say that that it was fate. Either/or, custodial allows the mind to take time to consider such things.

More later...

Greetings, All!

This blogging site is my attempt to have a voice. Whether it is listened to or not, well, we'll see...

I actually want to turn this into an audio blog eventually, so I will work on that. The idea of audio blogging is intriguing to me, especially after stumbling upon blogtalkradio.com. The only thing about btr that does not impress me in the least is the audio quality. Since shows are broadcast onto the site via the telephone, all audio has the tinny quality that you would expect from a phone. When I listen to what my mind is telling me is a "radio" show, my ear wants to hear the rich sound of a radio broadcast and not a telephone conversation. So, point is, I want this to be a way to present my personal audioblogs.

More to come...