[sch]metzger

"The thing is, when Adam finished naming the animals, after all his work and effort, God put him to sleep, took a rib out of his side, and fashioned a woman. I had read that part a thousand times, too, but I don't think I quite realized how beautiful this moment was. Moses said the whole time Adam was naming the animals, that entire hundred years, he couldn't find a helpmate suitable for him. That means while he was naming cattle he was lonely because he couldn't really communicate in the same way with the cattle, and when he was naming fish he probably wanted to go swim in the ocean with them, but he couldn't breathe underwater; and the entire time he could not imagine what a helpmate might look like, how a helpmate might talk, the ways in which a helpmate might think. The idea of another person had, perhaps, never entered Adam's mind. Just like a kid who grows up without a father has no idea what having a father would be like, a guy who grows up the only human would have no idea what having another human around would be like. So here was this guy who was intensely relational, needing other people, and in order to cause him to appreciate the gift of companionship, God had him hang out with chimps for a hundred years. It's quite beautiful, really. God directed Adam's steps so that when He created Eve, Adam would have the utmost appreciation, respect, and gratitude.
"I think it was smart of God because today, now that there are women all around and a guy can go on the Internet and see them naked anytime he wants, the whole species has been devalued. If I were a girl today in America, I would be a feminist for sure. I read recently where one out of every four women, by the time they reach thirty, are sexually harassed, molested, or raped. And then I thought how very beautiful it was that God made Adam work for so long because there is no way, after a hundred years of being alone, looking for somebody whom you would connect with in your soul, that you would take advantage of a woman once you met one. She would be the most precious creation in all of the world, and you would probably wake up every morning and look at her and wonder at her beauty, or the gentle, silent way she sleeps. It stands to reason if Byron, Keats, and Shelley made beauty from reflecting on their muses, having grown up around women all their lives, that even these sonnets could not capture the sensation Adam must have felt when he opened his eyes to find Eve."

-Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What, pp. 65-66

shawn time 23.36.09..11.22.04

enjoy U2 (legitimately)

5 comments so far

now you can buy it

U2@

while you are at iTunes, also notice "The Complete U2". A digital box set.
cool.

....update. just downloaded the album from iTunes Music Store (thanks Boband Mattfor the itunes birthday $$). A "Digital Booklet" was included. Translation: the cd book included in digital format. Not just album cover art, but all liner notes, etc. Kinda cool, as this has not yet been something iTunes has included before (methinks). Kinda lame though, because it looks as if it is just the individual pages, not in order. It would be as if I had pulled apart the actual book and scanned it in. Makes sense, if I am planning on printing out the pages and assembling my own book. Does not make sense if I am going to just view it digitally. Picky picky, huh?

might as well add more....
U2 played a show in NYC today. Picsfrom Getty.
Video to air on MTV, December 10.

....listened to the album. twice.
its a fast album. only 49 minutes.

printed out the "digital booklet". only took me 20 minutes to assemble the stupid thing.
for those interested: page order from bottom to top: 1, 3, 11, 4, 10, 5, 9, 6, 8, 2, 12, 7.

shawn time 23.18.35..11.22.04

file under: "transportation"

some more pics.
been taking plenty. none have been good.
in the past 4 days....163 pics...and here are 3. not really good, just kinda funny to me. all transportation related. plus, i took them all while in my car. neat, neat.

the first: some weird effect that iPhoto did
the second: yep, pink with purple flames
the third: an actual traffic/construction sign in Lake Oswego

shawn time 22.52.15..11.22.04

stream.2

another stream-of-consciousness....
potential things to blog about...

how my taste in food, as well as my taste in clothes is pretty bland....and what that says about who I am. and why i need more color in both.

why i look at books more than i read books.

how cool my birthday was. which leads to how cool digital pictures are. oh wait....already did that. my birthday rocked.

a discussion of the boundaries in life, love, time, energy, relationships, money etc. why is it important to have them, and what happens when i don't.

i should have a regular blog installation (post) that features a friend. i have some cool friends. i think that i should interview them and post some of their interesting thoughts and ideas. who is first?

my ideas to rule the tutoring world.

my idea to play bass in the next biggest band of the world.

why the House of Prayer is ultra-important to what is up spiritually in our city.

why i have more ideas than i will actually ever blog about.

why blogging is at the same theraputic, creative, voyeuristic, satisfying, and selfish.

shawn time 02.05.02..11.21.04

portland.5

Murray and Hwy 26

shawn time 18.08.19..11.19.04

souvenir

THIS VEHICLE PROTECTED BY A GENUINE SUBARU SECURITY SYSTEM

shawn time 11.00.20..11.19.04

silver lining

he is still a craphead burglar...
but I left my wallet at the House. Yeah!

already cancelled the cards though...so I will live off of cash for a while.

keyboard still gone.
(sniff)

shawn time 09.10.33..11.19.04

craphead burglar

and my wallet is gone
no cash
just cards
bank cards
license
insurance card
hassle

shawn time 05.38.05..11.19.04

the sound of my own voice

If you heard "hey!!!", "HEY!!!", "HEYYYYYY!!!" echoing through the streets of downtown Porltand at about 4am Friday morning, that was me.

I was yelling at the guy that was rummaging through my car.

He heard me.
He ran.

That was about an hour and a half ago.

I saw the guy, briefly, before he ran off around the corner. All my stuff was still there. Well, except my keyboard. The most mother heavy thing in my car got stolen.

I think there must have been another person involved. The guy that ran off definitely was not carrying it. And it was too heavy, and too short of a time for him to have been back for a second trip.

Everything else was left.

If I were thinking clearly when I was being robbed, I would not have yelled so loudly at him. Maybe not at all. I think I would have skipped right to the calling the police part of the story. It would have been a bit more enjoyable to watch the police roll up and yell at him, than it was for me to have an excuse to yell through the streets of pdx at 4 in the morning.

He did leave his flashlight in my car. The police took that.
He did drop his cell phone. The police took that.
He did leave his fingerprints. The police did not take that.

I drove around for 20 minutes or so afterwards. I don't really know what I would have done if I saw him cruising down the street with my Yamaha SY85. Maybe I would have just taken the opportunity to yell "HEY" real loud again and hear my voice echo through the streets of Portland at 4 in the morning as he dropped my keyboard and ran away. Then I would have a broken keyboard.

shawn time 05.11.25..11.19.04

portland.4

10th and Clay

shawn's car
minus window
minus keyboard

shawn time 23.45.58..11.18.04

pop-therapy

"I write feelings, not thoughts. Feelings are much stronger than thoughts. We are all led by instinct, and our intellect catches up later."

-Bono (from Spin magazine)

shawn time 22.43.37..11.18.04

good google

Along with the amazon thing (see old post), I am sure this will also not suck:
Google Scholar

Is there a reason for libraries?

shawn time 22.31.29..11.18.04

nightlight

I have a new commitment.
Tonight I start spending my Thursday nights at the Downtown House of Prayer.
Midnight-6am.
The leadership of the house has decided to move the time focus of our sessions to 6pm-6am.
I am night guy anyways, fine by me. Fridays are days off, so I can get rest after I pull the all-nighters.
6 hours, though. That is a long time.

So, if any of you want to come down and join me on a Thursday night between 12 and 6am, you are welcome.

Join me. We will talk together. We will pray together. We will be together.

shawn time 22.14.18..11.18.04

LO Library

more pics.
spent my 20 feet at LO Library while waiting for a student. took 22. you get 3.

camera is new, i am still trigger happy, expect plenty of photo blogging for a while. no apologies. photgraphy is fun. well, taking pictures is fun. photography might be too strong of a word. may offend some of my students at PNCA.

without any further ado...

creatively titled: gum, napkin, flag

shawn time 13.48.49..11.17.04

new discipline

a bit camera happy.
digital cameras are cool.
period.
lots of pictures have been taken today.
you get a sample of the best. my opinion wins of course.
enjoy.

i am going to start a little photo discipline. the pics i took today were all shot in about a 20' by 20' area. i just looked closely to different elements of a garden area across the street from my house. at first glance there is nothing to take a picture of. but, after spending 20 minutes looking, all of a sudden.....everything is picture worthy. well, not everything. i took about 60 pictures. you get the top 5.
tomorrow i will find another 20' square patch and click click click. photo discipline.

oh.....if I have not yet mentioned it, i had a great birthday!

leave captions in the comments....

shawn time 00.56.14..11.15.04

30th surprise party!

9 comments so far

Best Birthday ever!
[almost] All of my friends in the same place at the same time. Unbelievable.

All of my worlds converged in one place at one time.

I thank everyone that was there. I thank everyone that pitched in for the digital camera that took the pics below. A wonderful gift.

It was a great great great great great night.

Thank you Laura for planning such a special occasion.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

(click on pics for larger view)

shawn time 15.07.48..11.13.04

29.997153916211

5 comments so far

the last day of my 20's.
my third decade is over.
30 years.

by the time they were 30.....
Einstein had published his "special theory of relativity".
The Beatles had recorded, ruled the charts, and broken up.
John F. Kennedy had been elected to Congress.
Mozart had written a pile of music, too much to quantify.
Michael Jordan had won an NCAA title, 3 NBA titles, and 3 NBA MVP awards.
Jesus had made a lot of coffee tables.
Shawn has a blog.

shawn time 23.11.04..11.11.04

oh brother

go read my brother's blog.
he just started it.
The Life of a Busy Rob

shawn time 22.05.37..11.11.04

amazing amazon

who forgot to tell me about this?
wha....th....

Search Inside the Book

shawn time 20.28.52..11.11.04

Homeland Security

What if the First Nations had a Department of Homeland Security?

not a criticism, just a thought.

shawn time 12.48.44..11.09.04

long lost friends

evidentally, feelings are important.
specifically, my feelings are important.
news to me.

the past two weeks I have been attempting to listen a bit closer to my feelings. i know i have them. i know that i have HAD them. i just never knew that they should matter at all.

i know it sounds a bit unreal for those of you that are aware of your feelings all of the time. i have, over time, learned to not really listen to feelings. like i said, i know that they are there, but i always was told that your feelings were wrong, or that feelings lie, and that they are not to be trusted.

i have been chewing on this helpful advise: (DISCLAIMER: helpful for me. it may not be helpful for you.)
the advise i received is this: feelings are not right and they are not wrong. they just are. feelings are information about yourself. they exist. they exist for a reason. listening to your feelings is helpful in knowing more about who you. letting feelings inform you is a good thing.

so, the past couple of weeks, i have been asking myself that important question.....

"shawn, how do you feel?"

sounds funny to me.

when i ask myself that, it usually is not hard to have a word to attach to how i am feeling. it really is not too hard at all. what is hard is remembering to ask myself the question. i need to ask myself that question more, and remind myself to ask myself, and remind to remind myself to ask myself......

i have gone for so long pushing my feeling away, or down, or out, or somewhere. thinking always ruled. the mind was always right. everything could be figured out, rationalized. feelings were deceivers and not to be heard or trusted.

thoughts and feelings can co-exist together within me. one does not negate the other. one does not override the other. they just both are there. i can be both a thinker and a feeler.

thoughts and feelings are friends.
long lost friends.

shawn time 15.43.51..11.05.04

too interesting not to post

I didn't think my blog was going to be a blog that posts about other blog posts.....but that's part of this world.
oh well.

This was interesting enough to send you all to. I spent some time in Scotland last year. I may need to go hang in that monastery for a bit on next years trip. Really.

And some of the big picture church stuff gets me thinking in a couple of new ways as it applies to my life specifically. more on that later.

thinking/feeling/doing

go read:
andrew jones

shawn time 23.29.48..11.03.04

words vs. images

sometimes it is just easier to post a pic than to write.
watch out for falling buildings.

shawn time 23.22.50..11.03.04

portland.3