Interpreting Roosters.

The little man with the frown,
he comes to town every now and then.
But I never let him stay long,
lest he forget he is meant to pitch tents.

There is a sadness,
so beautiful in it's time.
But "Cock-a-doodle-doo,"
translated to English means,
"The hour of joy is upon us,"
and a blazing sphere plays peek-a-boo
to make us laugh like little ones.

Lungs and Hearts Don't Have Arms

Have you ever noticed
how your lungs
don't have arms
or hands?

Thus
they can't really
reach out
and grab the air
that they need.

And they don't need to.
They just open up, and
ahh . . . there it is.

And have you ever noticed
how your heart
doesn't have arms
or hands?

So
it can't really
reach out
and grab the God
that it needs.

And it doesn't need to.
Just open it up, and
ahh . . . there He is.

Life With Coffee

I'll just say this: caffeine's a heck of a drug!

You know what though? It's really not about the caffeine. It's about the coffee. The taste. The aroma. The flavorful, fragrant dance with my senses that I experience when the first sip hits my tongue. The relaxation I experience when I sit down and do absolutely nothing but enjoy life and pleasure and God and my surroundings. That's the really special part. I don't -need- caffeine, and I proved it for 40 days.

The caffeine is just lagniappe. It's like buying Axe Body Wash and getting a free trial size stick of Axe deodorant with it. It's the icing on the cake. The cherry on the sundae. The walnuts in the brownies. I'm really hungry.

Basically, it's the little extra thing on the main big thing.

But still: caffeine's a heck of a drug!

And that's the word.

~Ken, Born of Fire

P.S. You wanna hear a joke? What do you tell someone who's nervous and constipated? You tell them to take a relaxative.

Fleeing Earth

Though she's not actually there,
I can't look at a globe and not see America,
Her great states stretching out beyond their size.
(Alaska and Hawaii seem to be there
just to assure me
that borders were never quite her cup of tea).

What will happen when she's really gone?
I'm referring not to the time when she's no longer represented
visually on some atlas,
but to the time when the land mass she onced called home
picks up its roots and runs!
My world, my earth and my heaven,
Fled, dead and unpresent.

Will I survive
the haunting sight
of my great protector's
moment of cowardice?

I think so.

There's so much in my mind
And it's hard
to find
the time
to sort it
and give some order to it.

So I'm planning to let it pile
and not tend to it for a while
And let stacks of sticky notes
build houses
with motes
and floors
and ceiling tiles.


I think I'll add more to this later.

~Ken, Born of Fire

Homesickness

It's funny how things change sometimes. When I first came to college, I used to go home every weekend. Staying all the way in Lafayette, a whole hour and a half away from good ol' Morgan City and my family, wasn't even a consideration.

Then I started making friends, mainly through Chi Alpha. Once I did, there was some appeal to staying over the weekend. I could actually do something besides watch TV in my lonely little room with my creepily silent roomate. I started staying. Just a few times a semester at first. Nothing major. Gradually, slowly, I began to stay a little bit more frequently. Within a few years, I transitioned from going more than staying to staying more than going.

Fast forward to this semester, 5 years after that first bold adventure of staying the weekend. I haven't been home all semester. This is most certainly the longest amount of time I've ever been away from home. And I don't know if I've ever said this before, but I'm actually homesick. I've been feeling pretty bad lately, and for awhile I couldn't figure out why. But I guess I just figured it out today:

I miss my family. I miss my Mom. I miss my Dad. I miss my brother and his wife (who's pregnant, btw). I miss my sisters and brother-in-law and my 2 little nieces. And gosh how I hate, hate, hate seeing that my nieces have grown a LOT since the last time I've seen them and knowing that I missed out on so much. I miss my grandparents. I miss the 2 friends whom I always make a point to see everytime I go home. All this missing has just been eating away at me.

Don't worry about me though. This isn't meant to be a sob story. First of all, now that I've figured all that out, I feel a lot better. AND, guess what? I get to go home THIS WEEKEND! And not just for a weekend, but for 10 whole stinkin' days! I'm so excited!

So you see, this story does have a happy ending. : )

BTW: I can drink coffee again! I'll talk about that next time.

~Ken, Born of Fire

A List

I came up with 10 things you can do to feel like a really important/awesome person when you're walking around on campus:

10. Always have your cell phone out. If you're not actually talking to anyone, pretend. And act like you're really chewing them out about something.

9. Puff up your shoulders, stick out your chest, and flex your arms as you walk. Do this just enough to look buff, but not so much that you draw attention to yourself.

8. One word: scowl.

7. Walk at a steady, fairly quick pace, and look frustrated when having to walk around people or slow down, or . . .

6. Walk at a cool, relaxed pace. Take the time to stop and smell the occasional flower.

*Whether you do 6 or 7 just depends on what kind of mood you're in: 7 is, "I have really important stuff to do, so get out of my way you buncha slow-poke slackers." 8 is more along the lines of, "I'm so important that it doesn't matter if I'm late because no one will dare hold me accountable for it, so I take my time, fool."

5. Smile and wave at random people that you don't know. It might even help if you say, "Hey, [insert random name here]." Then the people behind you will think you must be really important and awesome because you know everybody.

*Now, you might be thinking that this will make you look really dumb if the person stops and says, "Hey, that's not my name. Do I know you?" But trust me, that never happens.

4. When crossing the street at a crosswalk, pay attention to the street light. Time your walk so that you start crossing just before the light turns, to where your foot makes contact with the street at the exact second that the crosswalk says walk and the beeping sound starts.

3. God forbid, but if you happen to drop something, DON'T pick it up. If someone picks it up for you, act like you didn't notice, casually take it back, and keep walking.

2. If you pass by someone who happens to be smoking a cigarette, pull it out of their mouth and throw it on the ground. Don't stop to do this. Keep a steady pass and do it quickly as you pass them by. If you do it correctly, that may not even notice who did it.

1. Finally, the number one way to feel really awesome and important when walking around on campus: hum one of two tunes inaudibly to yourself: either The Imperial March from Star Wars or Eye of the Tiger. If you do this, you'll feel like you own the freakin' campus, and the other 9 things will just come naturally to you.

~Ken, Born of Fire

The Insufficiency of Rhetoric in Resisting Temptation

One thing I love about having a blog now is that it gives me one more reason to procrastinate doing school work. : ) I love it. If there's one thing I really need in my life, it's more motivation for procrastination.

So recently I've been thinking about the ways in which I resist sin. And regarding that, I thought of something that I phrase the insufficiency of rhetoric. Now, I shall blog about it:


Rhetoric: "The art of using language so as to persuade or influence others; the body of rules to be observed by a speaker or writer in order that he may express himself with eloquence" (OED).


"When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God . . . My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." (1 Corinthains 2:1, 4-5)


In this passage of Scripture, Paul is talking about preaching the Gospel. However, I believe that the principle he is putting forth here is one that can be applied to other areas as well. Just as rhetoric (or eloquent/wise/persuasive speech) is insufficient for causing someone to believe the message of Jesus, it is also insufficient for causing a believer to resist any given temptation to sin.

When I am being tempted with some kind of sin, my first resort is to argue with the temptation. The temptation says "Do it," and I reply, "No, it's not worth it." Temptation says, "It won't hurt anyone," and I reply, "It will hurt the heart of God." Temptation says, "He'll forgive you," and I reply, "I don't want him to have to."

And the conversation goes on in this way. What's happening is that I'm basically trying to persuade myself against the arguments of the temptation. And if I rely solely on my own persuasive power in order to resist, I usually fall short. I sin. The rhetoric is not sufficient.

Don't get me wrong though; it's not like the rhetoric isn't helpful. Going back to the passage of Scripture, look at who wrote it: the Apostle Paul. When you read his letters, you see very quickly that Paul was a master rhetorician. And look at Acts 17. Paul could argue persuasively with the top philosophers in all of Athens. He definitely knew the value of persuasive speech, but he also knew that that's not where the true power lies. The true power of the Gospel is found only in the Spirit of God.

It is that very same Spirit whom Paul refers to here, the Spirit on whom the faith of every believer rests, who will also strengthen us to resist sin, so that our holiness might not rest on our own rhetoric, but on God's power. As long as a believer continues to rely on his own strength, and the power of his own mind, to resist sin, he will continue to fail and fail again. The only solution is to ask God for his Holy Spirit and the power that he provides, and to receive it with an open heart. All other methods are hopeless.