Inadequacy

¹ See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,^[a] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³ All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
 ⁴ Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. ⁵ But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. ⁶ No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
 ⁷ Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. ⁸ The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. ⁹ No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. ¹⁰ This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
 ¹¹ For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ¹²Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. ¹³ Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters,^[b] if the world hates you. ¹⁴ We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. ¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be that person? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
 ¹⁹ This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: ²⁰ If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹ Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. ²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.






God loves us.




God's love is not safe.


God's love is good.

Now show me your glory.

Exodus 33


 ¹² Moses said to the LORD, "You have been telling me, 'Lead these people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, 'I know you by name and you have found favor with me.' ¹³ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people." ¹⁴ The LORD replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."
 ¹⁵ Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. ¹⁶How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?"
 ¹⁷ And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name."
 ¹⁸ Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."
 ¹⁹ And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. ²⁰ But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."
 ²¹ Then the LORD said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. ²² When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. ²³ Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."




Blows my mind. I hope to write more on the topic soon, but I should really be writing about the determination of pKa1 and pKa2 of an unknown diprotic acid. Because right now, science is winning.

Muspatch

To summarize my life since my last post, I have done many things.

My hand smells like an onion. A tribute to Shannon.

Well, since pretty much all of my freinds' recent blog updates mention Shannon in the title, I figured I should do the same. It has been quite a while since my last update. And July is almost over. Sir Thomas Ian Boundy paid me a visit on my student mentor's last day in the lab, right before I left for North Carolina. Lots of changes at that time, but it was really good to see him and get a little preview of what this next semester will look like as we room together. I'm stoked. During that time, we met with the pastor of a church about possibly taking youth pastor positions for the next school year. It could be awesome, but I'm worried of over-commitment. Don't want to spread myself too thin, you know? Prayer in this matter would be appreciated as the deadline to make a decision rapidly approaches. Cool.

This is [a] song I'm listening to as I write this post. I enjoy it, and I want to share with you.

The next morning, I gave a presentation on my work so far at that point. I really enjoyed it, but was incredibly glad to be done with it. It was challenging to stand in front of a room of educated people and peers to talk about something that they all understood way better than I did, but I really felt good about it. Nothing like a nice chat about solid-phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to clear the head.

Then, I went to North Carolina to rendezvous with the other Fullers in celebration of my grandparents' sixtieth wedding anniversary. That's right - sixty years. They're pretty awesome. It was really nice to chat with them and get to know them a little better, especially since I find that I now respect them even more than when I was younger. Their love for God and others is overwhelming. I like that.

As far as I know, I had more science for the week, then joined my parents in San Diego for the weekend. See, my parents have this great tradition of taking awesome vacations without the kids during church camp. This year, since I did not have church camp, I was able to participate in part of their awesome vacation by boogie boarding, bike riding, and eating great meals at Mission Beach. It was the first *real* vacation I feel I've had in a long time. The following weekend, I visited them again for Friday night and Saturday morning, which was great. After that, I visited a vacationing high school friend, Kyle Thomas, in Newport. I like that kid.

More recently, Sam came out to Malibu for volleyball camp. He is hilarious, and I enjoyed our brotherly bonding, which mostly consisted of sitting naked around a campfire telling stories about animals we've bested. Or just hanging out, watching movies and going to the beach. One of those. Regardless, while Sam was busy at volleyball camp, I was able to visit the Getty Center in LA with the chem students and professors. I totally nerded out - I actually felt a trace of jealousy in the gas chromatography lab in the conservation institute there. And their scanning electron microscope blew my mind. God's design is so beautifully intricate. Also, I learned that I can now appreciate art. Later, while Sam was still at camp, I had a chance to relax and do nothing but sit and think. I needed that.

Now, I'm writing this in between drafts of my presentation for tomorrow. And then, I come home. I'm ready.

And I've been learning a lot lately. The past month has been good for teaching me about myself and how to deal with people. God answers prayer. And, I'm learning tons about the responsibility of knowledge. A song someone close shared with me has the following lyrics: "Now that I have seen, I am responsible / Faith without deeds is dead."

And that probably feels like it's just tacked onto the end of this post, but I simply don't have the time or energy to share everything I've learned in the past month right now. If you talk to me, I'd be glad to share more.

And now, to address the title. My hand smell(s/ed?) like an onion. Cooking is cool. Except onions kind of smell bad. And this post has been a smorgasbord of random thoughts. What I mean by that is this...

If you feel like dancing, dance with me.

Hermitry: a Definition. Or not.

I think this is what I'm going for. And when I google searched for this picture, its title was "Arizona Mountain Man." So, I think it works.

The reason I write this post, though, is because it's convenient. Before, explaining what exactly my "hermitry" was was almost pointless. I may have been up to all sorts of shenanigans in Fiji and whatnot, but I was very much with other people. But now, I'm at Pepperdine. Campus life is very different - it's empty here. I knew this fact prior to my departure, so I told those closer to me that I would be spending the summer relatively alone - a mountain man. Or a hermit, if you will. Since I have now had a chance to explore what it's like to be a mountain man in Malibu, my blog's url now can make sense.

I've been busy this summer. I had about a week and a half at home, which was a much-needed "break" from the rush of things. But it wasn't much of a break at all. Jess graduated from high school, Gruess came rafting with my family (minus Jess) in Utah, the two of us explored Phoenix, Sam and I played volleyball, and Copper wimped out on a walk to the park. Here are some highlights from the trip (can it be called a trip if I was home for most of it?).

Sam, Dad, Grace and I went hiking at the second campsite, and we found this AWESOME pool. It was a ways up, far from the naked people down at the lower pools - not too hot, not too cold (actually, it was cold for me, but I freeze easily). And, we got to jump off the tiny "cliff" on the right. It was great.

Off the river.

Yay Cassie!

Okay, so I know I said I would give highlights of my visit at home, but the camera was only really out for the first half of being there. The rest of the time was spent (mostly) with family and (partly) with friends. And vehicle searching - very tedious. Then, off to Pepperdine.

SO MUCH SCIENCE

Working in the lab has been crazy. My boss/professor, Dr. Ganske, is probably one of the most intelligent people ever. And the guy who trained me, Andrew, is one of three students in next year's class of M.D./Ph.D. students at USC. So it's been a blessing to be surrounded by such intelligent people - I've been learning a TON. The official title of my project (actually, Andrew and Dr. Ganske's project, but I'm helping to finish it up) is something like The Application of Headspace Solid-Phase Micro-Extraction Coupled with Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry to Non-Intrusively Characterize the Aging of Rare Books. On a side-note, many of the papers I read on the subject are from Europe or South America, where people spell "aging" "ageing." This bothers me. Today (somewhat relative since I've been working on this post for about a week and a half now), I actually discovered something significant for my project. I feel pretty good. Yay.

On weekends is when the hermitry happens. Malibu is beautiful, and I like to explore, whether that's by (attempting) surfing, hiking in Malibu Creek State Park, or... Okay, so I haven't been the best at being a hermit this summer, but I don't feel too bad about that. Hermitry can be nice and peaceful, but I also enjoy being with others.

Doing things like

Visiting Coach Mann at an Anaheim tournament (my coach from high school).

Going to NC to see the "other" Fullers.

Hanging out with Noah and his/our friends.

Getting food with visiting friends.

Summer UM.

Eating.

And I realize that I may have completely deviated from what I originally set out to do with this post, but that's what I get for not cranking it out in one sitting.

And I can't really even grow facial hair, so what's the point?

Home

Before I start, I would like to share something. I discovered this on Pandora Radio while trying to read for my chemistry research. I bought the whole album, which will be the soundtrack for this post. Sort of.

So, it's been a while since my last update. This post is about home, and ironically enough, I'm not home. Or am I? I hope to explore what home means and how the concept of home can change.

Home is not one place. At least not for me. To give a small example, I found myself at home in Fiji. Yes, I was in a third world country, thousands of miles from Ahwatukee, Arizona. Somehow, though, I felt at home. To be honest, I'm not quite sure why I felt that way. Probably, home has a lot to do with where we feel we belong. And I felt like I belonged in Fiji. God put me there for a reason, and that's about all I needed.

Yet, while I was in Fiji, I felt a longing to go home. Home is not necessarily where you live. Yes, I felt a sense of belonging and homeliness in Fiji, but I suppose only a small part of me felt that way. I was only beginning to establish my relationship with that place, and relationships take a long time to grow. Probably, if I had been there longer, Fiji would have become an even better "home" for me, but it would never be the only home in my mind. For instance, I was talking with Mike, the resident missionary near the mission, when he said something along the lines of, "You know, you get used to the way of life out here - it's a lot different from the way things run back home." Wait. He had been there for about a year, but it still wasn't home for him. The mere fact that Fiji was his place of residence did not mean that it was his home, and I see truth in that.

On one of the last days before leaving Fiji, I decided that I was ready to be home. Home, in Phoenix, with my family. People tell me I'm a very homely person - that I love to be home. How true that is. I suppose I can give you a summary of what happened.

I got home, watched my sister graduate, hung out with my family, had this one girl over, went rafting, played some volleyball, and bought a truck.

Moving on.

Ha.

I was only actually home for a week, but I really appreciated the time there. Home, the place I spent ten years of my life. Only ten years, though. What about those other 8? Home then was 583 West Magdalena. Which, after all these years, I still see as home, at least for part of me. In the same way, part of home will always be right next to South Mountain. What makes those places home, though?

Family. With my family, I fit. It may not always be extrinsically pretty, but we all feel a sense of homeliness when we're together. Even if they move away, I like to think I'll still feel at home with them.

And sometimes, feeling at home is a lot more important than physically being home. I left home to return to my other home - Pepperdine. And I have to build home for myself, now. Living in the apartments brings a sense of independence that forces me to own what I'm blessed to call home for the next three years. I was pretty stinking lonely when I first got here for the summer. And those feelings carried into the next week. Being busy helped distract me from how I felt, but the whole time, there was an underlying sense of not quite fitting in. Pepperdine is a different place in the summer, and it wasn't quite as homely as it was for me during the year.

But then something interesting happened. SOS. A bunch of homeless people - misfits, if you will - with whom I can feel at home. It blew my mind how I felt more at home with people who had no place to live than I did in my apartment. God works in beautiful ways. Since I care so deeply about this issue, you can ask me personally, as I don't think my written words could do any justice. But, while I'm writing about SOS, they can always use donations, used to buy things like coats, sleeping bags, and food for the homeless in the Santa Monica/Sunset Boulevard area. Here is the link.

Being home with homeless people brings me to my final thought. While home can exist in physical places, home ultimately is where the heart is. Yes, it's a cheesy saying, but there is simple, elegant truth in those words. Home should be a place of love, and God is love, so ultimately, our home is with God. I hope that doesn't seem too cliche. But whatever. God is our home. And that will never change.

Also, for the record,

I know what homely means.

Unwind

DISCLAIMER:

I published this post, then hid it with the intention of revising it. Now, I don't think I'll revise it. I'll just re-publish it without reading it. Because putting uncensored personal information on the internet is always a great idea. I originally wrote it at about 11:30pm on my first night back from Fiji. With that said, don't judge me.

Well, I figure I should give everyone an update on how things were in Fiji. Because I'm home and pretty much everyone is in bed, I'm bored. Being out of the country for three and a half weeks with nothing to do at night except hang out with people and write emails and blog posts has taken its toll on me. Since, as I mentioned previously, errybody gone night night, I'm left here with nothing much to do except inform the interwebs of how I'm doing. Because they're not real. And, apparently, I am. Who would've thought?

What I Learned

The original intent of this post was going to be all about what I learned on my Fiji trip. The idea comes from a former pastor, Tom Shrader, who would give a sermon or two each summer titled "What I learned on my Summer Vacation." I sat down to write something along those lines, but realized that it's out of grasp at the moment. Maybe someday. Know that I learned a lot, and that I will gladly discuss some or all of it with you, but I don't think the internet needs that much personal information. Guarding myself, ya dig?

Basically, the biggest things I learned were that...

Nathan is prideful. And I don't like that. Thankfully, God really used this trip to teach me just how humble I need to be. Except I probably didn't get it all and will need even more reminding at a later date.

and

Intentionality is good. The first time I heard the word "intentional" used in this context was probably by my cousin Daniel and his wife, Kristin. The pastor at their wedding talked about how "intentional" they were in all of their relationships. Honestly, I thought the term was kind of weird, as I didn't see any way a relationship could be unintentional. But then I went to college and learned that relationships require work. I learned what it meant to take a deep interest in the lives of others for the mere sake of building community with those people. I'm reading Soul Cravings at the moment (finally, after more than a year of trying to knock it out, I've picked it up with the intention [get it?] of finishing it), and in this book, Erwin McManus talks about love. He says lots of good things and focuses on the idea that human beings are relational. In fact, I know someone who probably could have written a few sections of this book, and I think that's pretty cool. Anyways, over the short period of three weeks, I built some pretty solid friendships -not on my own, mind you- with people I barely knew. And all it took was a little effort. Asking meaningful questions. Actually caring about the answers. And so on.

And I'm still figuring out exactly what happened in the month of May. May 2, 2010 never happened, and I left Fiji just now 24 hours ago. It hurts my brain to think about it. Anyways, I'm home, and it's great to be back. Looking forward to the little time I have with the family. Going rafting this weekend after the sister graduates on Thursday. And the week is packed.

And I think I'm super jet lagged. Woooooo.

If I can leave you with anything meaningful, I would encourage you to do these two things:

1) Be intentional. Ask questions. Care.

2) Read Matthew. That Jesus guy blows my mind.

3) Get sleep. I don't think this post was coherent. I'm probably tired. Like I said, Woooooo.