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ModernDayRomeo
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Name: Allen
Birthday: 2/23/1983
Gender: Male
Interests: Listening to people, Religion and intellectual conversation and hanging out with my friends..................never giving up hope
Expertise: repeatedly making the same mistakes again............Slow learner haha
Occupation: Student
Industry: Other
Message: message me
AIM:  armoryallen
Yahoo:  allenhamlin
Member Since:
5/3/2003
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| Graduated from college and some very good perspectives for the future, we'll see how it works out
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| Today is the first of May, Since 2001 my life has been busy........Its not getting any less busy but it is slowing down in good fashion, which I like. I get to live in a place where the pace of life matches me and there are lots of things to do instead of just walk around on pavement and concrete all day during the random trip to the malls or fast food joints. Boston and Quincy have been great places, but its time to get back to where I grew up and see whats changed. Do some camping and work at the church, to be part of a community that is not forever changing constantly all at once.
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Is there anyone that fails
Is there anyone that falls
Am I the only one in church today feelin' so small
Cause when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they'll soon discover
That I don't belong
So I tuck it all away, like everything's okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I'll believe it too
So with a painted grin, I play the heart again
So everyone will see me the way that I see them
Are we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles to hide our pain
But if the invitation's open
To every heart that has been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain
On our stained glass masquerade
Is there anyone who's been there
Are there any hands to raise
Am I the only one who's traded
In the altar for a stage
The performance is convincing
And we know every line by heart
Only when no one is watching
Can we really fall apart
But would it set me free
If I dared to let you see
The truth behind the person
That you imagine me to be
Would your arms be open
Or would you walk away
Would the love of Jesus
Be enough to make you stay
What does Lament and anger have to do with being part of a community? Everything I would think, is the love of Jesus enough for the Church or do we lack such faith........do people no reveal themselves to the church for fear of being persecuted? Church is a place of hope.............that has come from a despair that only God can quench. No other, so is the church enough to........
set us free
If we dared to let everyone see
The truth behind the people
That you imagine us to be
Would the arms be open
Or would there be walking away
Would the love of Jesus
Be enough to make us stay
Moving in a direction, believing at any moment that God may call us in the other direction, eternal Life has begun already.........who do you see?
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| I am grateful for the time I have, as I walk the grounds of ENC and the streets of Quincy. I remember the days of the Blockbuster where the Super 88 is and what used to be called Victory market just down the street. Things have changed though, the same people I started school with are no longer here and even those who came after them are gone as well. I find myself wondering about my life and what it is all worth as I take a look at this world around me of college students and this small piece of land called ENC. I ask myself what are you suppose to have accomplished by the time you are 24 yrs old? I guess the answer would change with every generation, for my great grandparents it was get married have kids and work hard. For my grandparents it was the same and even for my parents, but not for my generation I guess. People always seem to think that they know what makes the world a better place, a better place for who though? I am aware of my own mortality as I walk the beach listening to the birds chattering and the familiar sound of sea gulls dropping their dinner on the rocks. I think of the places I have been good and bad and really wonder if I can even begin to label them as such. I am grateful though, grateful that I have had the opportunity to meet so many people from the coast of California all the way to the borders of Iran. So I guess at 24 I have done what I have wanted to do, but it does not mean I am done with this life I live. There seems to be always more things to do, even on the weekends. College is almost over and what a great thing that will be, I would rather work any day of the week then go to class. Being inside drains me and quite possibly makes me lazier then I ought to be. Though this education may be useful and help me to develop as a person , but the real question is how am I going to develop the education around me? I do not propose to make any one person better but there is a responsibility to help each other. Most folks do not want to be talked too, rather they would be talked with a key element that seems to escape the application of our educations. I have a passion for people to be able to talk with and just hang out, whether it be fixing someones car or just sitting at the table talking. In my passion for people though I have grown a disdain for that essence which thinks itself capable of authority. I have spent to many years as a student(second class citizen) being told I could not do things because I was irresponsible and a Christian. You can not hang out with those people nor can you work that job you do not know enough you are just a college student. In their ignorance people seem to forget the history of other. In my own personal experience I have been in more dangerous places and responsible for more equipment and money then any one person here at this educational establishment. There is a horrible thing about being a Christian, the world thinks we are weak and are incapable of having a dialog about the things of this world with out getting all sensitive. It is over that point that I find myself in despair because I am a Christian does not mean that I am weak. Most of the world has taken a stand some where in their lives and decided to hold them selves to a certain standard and my standard has become Christianity. Now there are those who have poisoned this stand they have excommunicated and passively ridiculed those standards that do not stand up to this thing called Christianity. I say they have fallen beneath their own standard, own what you stand for and do not be afraid of the consequences because in the actualized world we live in you can not hold a standard with out a consequence. Though you may not like your consequences do not passively ridicule those who do the things you do not. The do not have the same standards consequences because simply they live a different standard. The passion is to be for the people not for the things they may do. We will never get it all right, because we are to unaware of our mortality. We use words like "truth" and "right" as if they only last for as long as we breathe the air here. Mortality my friends that is the key.........Change for Mortality
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| This weeks theme could have been patience, which I have been told I am pretty good at. Though sometimes I wonder because well, I do not feel patient at times. I manage though, I've got a pretty full plate this year I guess I'm just trying to make up the time that is missing in my life. Things are great so I guess I cannot really complain, we're spending a little more money then I would have liked to this week, but God did provide money through other means. It's amazing what a little Kierkgaardian thought process will do for you when it comes down to it. Haha thats it I blame Soren if he had not caused me to realize that my life was in despair and only pleasing the Aesthetic and that I should pay more attention to the ethical, but no that was not enough The Knight of Faith trumps it all, Freakin Soren. No I'm just joking I like Kierkgaard alot, don't know what I would do with out him. I got to thinking today about "willing the one thing" What is that all about? really I mean as a Christian existentialist. Are we aware of our mortality as Christians? It is interesting the problems that
Kierkegaard challenges us with. The thing is,
Kierkegaard seems to be not with content just finding and answer to the
problems he discusses. Instead though Kierkegaard just wants to explore and continue
to challenge through his discussion of the self. Where we are supposed to go
through these discussions is a place that calls us out of the places where we
feel comfortable. The idea though is to take an in depth look at self and what
it might mean to us and the lives we live. The only way to do so is to come
into relation with the “sickness” that Kierkegaard talks about so much. The
“sickness” for Kierkegaard is one of despair and that despair is greatly
affected by how the self relates to the self in the world. For Kierkegaard
everyone is in despair whether they are aware of it or are not aware of it.
Kierkegaard believes that this despair has a very big impact on our lives as
self. Depending on where self is in the
span of time is directly proportionate the ‘feelings’ of despair that the self
is addressing. To begin to approach this
we must first realize that we are in despair. However there is a problem here,
shortly after realizing we are in despair we probably wish not to exist anymore
because who wants to exist in life if they know that there whole life will be
in despair. This burdens the despair even more than before when we had only
come to realize that we were in despair. It does not stop there though, now we
have come to the reality that we are in despair, not wanting to exist in that
despair we create even more despair in us by wondering how we can leave the
despair of not wanting to exist behind. The interesting thing here is that
despair seems to in the long run make us stronger which is almost ironic if we
sit and think too much about it. It would seem that despair has two side of the
coin on good and one is bad, which one however is better for us? It would seem
that there are only bad things that come out of despair, but both good and bad
things happen in the realm of despair. Though despair may seem to us like
suffering, for Kierkegaard it also raises ones self-awareness. Interestingly
enough though, if you up the amount of self-awareness it may actually make you
a stronger person, so eventually out of despair a stronger person is
cultivated. This I believe can only be accomplished if applied properly through
faith since Kierkegaard might equate sin with despair. For me as a Christian; Kierkegaard has challenged me not only through “Sickness unto Death”
but also “Fear and Trembling.” I can see now how faith in God is a crucial
avenue for me to walk down because it allows me to escape the despairing over
the despair I may have in my life. Kierkegaard has helped me to realize that
only through encountering and moving through my despair, am I able to free self
of that despair. Through being a Christian and coming to lean wholly on God. So
within the dialogue of finitude and Infinitude we are able to realize self and
the despair that self is in. Beginning a long chain of events, through this we
can realize that identity is not greater than the relations we obtain
especially when it comes to our faith in God. So in conclusion for us as
Christians Kierkegaard proposes a gigantic problem while providing us with a
forever nagging safeguard. To attain the Christian life that we are called to
we must be continually critical and never believe that everything is going the
way we have planned it out for ourselves. For if we wish to live the Christian
life we must first realize the despair we are in then have complete faith in
God giving up all presuppositions and the things that we do not want to give up.
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