Jigga What?

***The title of this post has nothing whatsoever to do with the content. I just couldn't think of a better title***

Hey guys and gals. Thanks for coming back to read my blog even though I'm updating it sporadically at best. I should decide on a day that I'll definitely update it every week. Let's see . . . how about Sunday. I'll do my best to update this blog for sure every Sunday. I'll probably update it on other days as well. But now you know that if you can only check back once a week, there'll be an update for you on Sundays.

Things at L'Abri are going swimmingly. I've had my first meeting of the term with Greg Laughery, my tutor. We picked up pretty easily where we left off. We're talking about a bunch of different things, but I'll try to outline here two of the main things that I'll be studying and thinking about and talking about with Greg this term:

1. What's the point of Christianity? By this I mean . . . well, I mean what's the point. Is it all about getting to heaven? Is the most important thing about Christianity believing the right thing or is it doing the right thing? Are they equally important? It's a hard question because the answer obviously isn't just one thing, but that's the way that it's presented in most churches and books. Take the Four Spiritual Laws, for instance. Seeing that tract makes it pretty clear that Campus Crusade for Christ believes that if you know only one thing about Christianity, it should be how to get to heaven. If the most important thing about Christianity is how to get to heaven and the only way to get to heaven is to believe the right thing, then it is pretty important to make sure you believe the right things. Throw into the mix the idea that if you do believe the right things then you'll want to act a certain way--even have certain emotional responses to things like sin and worship and God, himself--and it becomes very easy--at least for me--to worry constantly about whether or not you get it. So, I'm trying to figure out what the point is. Should I be so worried about what I believe and feel about God or is that just one point? Is it more objective than subjective? I've been reading a book by an Anglican bishop named N.T. Wright called "Simply Christian" to help me think about that some. I highly recommend this book because of it's casual style and original thought. It's been really helpful to me as I've read it some last term and come back to it this term. Of course, I've been reading the Bible as well.

2. Well, I guess this sort of runs in with the other point. I'll also be studying doubt and faith. I think I may have written about this a little bit the other day. I'm reading a book by Os Guinness called "God in the Dark" that outlines seven different types of doubt. It's been a really interesting book so far as well, simply because it's easy to apply to your own life. Reading each chapter takes you into a slightly different form of doubt stemming from different issues. I'm studying this to supplement the first topic and give me a way to interpret some of the doubts that I've been having about the reality of Christianity.

So there you have it. If you've got any questions or comments about any of that or you just want to hear how the studies are going, feel free to shoot me an email.


In other news, I went for an awesome hike this past Thursday. We started at L'Abri and hiked to a mountain peak called Roc D'Orsay. It was about a four hour hike up, and when I say "up," I mean straight up. There were a couple of fields along the way that gave our legs a break, but for the most part, it was just straight up incline the whole way. Below I've put some pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

Also, I've been asked by a local expatriate in town to design some book covers for him. He does this self-publishing thing and writes a bunch of pulp fiction books. He's loosely affiliated with L'Abri because he's arranged to have one or two of Greg Laughery's books published and we were introduced at chapel last Sunday. The books aren't very good and he's not paying me to do it, but they've worked it into my work schedule so I'm not having to take any of my spare time to work on it. Plus, I've never done a book cover before so it'll be a challenge. If I think what I make is good at all I'll post one of the covers on here for you guys to see.

Anything else? I don't think so.

Here we are hiking hardcore style. If you're wondering who those people are, here's the list, starting from behind me: Rhett from Alabama, Jon from New Hampshire, Molly from Connecticut, and Renea from Texas.


That's the mountain peak we were about to hike up. The last bit, going up to the very top, almost killed me.


I didn't really take many pictures at the top because it's just the same thing all over this country. Mountain, valley, mountain, valley, vineyard, mountain. The picture up at the top of the post is at the top of Roc D'Orsay, but you can't really see that much except me. I figured I'd put that one up there so you'd have a visual of me on mountain saying all of this to you. Anyway, here's a pic of our gondola ride down. We decided that it was worth it to grab a ride down. Also, they weren't checking tickets so we just kind of snuck on one.