one to fall in love

If you haven't noticed, I've decided to start a blog.

Now, I'm not a professional anything, nor am I an expert on any particular topic, but I am a student. I am a second year graduate student who does a lot of reading and a lot of writing. In order to get better at writing, I have decided to do it regularly, as in blogging. I will update this blog very frequently, writing roughly 500 words per post. I toyed with the idea of writing 500 words every day, but I realize that that will realistically not happen. I'll be happy with 3-6 posts per week.

As I am neither a professional nor an expert, topics will be ranging. Most likely, class texts, pleasure readings, and every day life will produce the inspiration. I am also recently engaged, so there may be much discourse on relationship and love (as the title suggests).

To give you a heads up on forthcoming posts, my spring semester starts one week from tomorrow, January 18, with a modular class. This is an intensive class that meets for 4 hours every morning for nearly 2 weeks. I will be taking Integrative Theology II until Friday, January 21. Integrative theology attempts to integrate systematic, historical, practical, and biblical theology. All (should) factor into the development of graduate students (i.e. my) theology. This class will discuss two major topics; atonement (the significance of Jesus' death) and pneumatology (doctrine of the Holy Spirit), two very fuzzy and commonly overlooked/misunderstood (could that be related?) dimensions of Christian theology. I imagine I will spend a good amount of time looking at the atonement as I am 50 pages into a very compelling text, Transforming Atonement: a political theology of the cross by Theodore Jennings Jr.

Some other discussion will circle around the development of post-modernity, specifically looking at epistemology (the doctrine of how we 'know'), as I am really into some 20^th century philosophers right now; Michael Polanyi (Personal Knowledge) and Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue).

Concerning relationship and love, my fiancée and I got engaged on Christmas day 2010. She is an incredibly beautiful, sweet, and generous woman. Dating (and now being engaged to) her has been so much fun, partly because her family is from Belize. Her parents moved to the US after getting married, and so they still hold to much of their Belizean culture. It's really fun to be with someone who has this mixing of cultures, living among multiple cultures from multiple sources.

Lastly, the title, "one to fall in love." This is a lyric from the song "War in my blood" by Fiction Family (Jon Foreman from Switchfoot and Sean Watkins from Nickelcreek). The full line is "It takes two to go to war, but only one to fall in love." I find incredible truth in this phrase. As I am learning, violence begets violence, war begets war, hate begets hate. Nothing like love can smother hate. While the world goes to war, my desire is to participate in a Peaceable Kingdom so filled with love that it discontinues the violent cycle.

Hope to see you soon!
OTFIL