lately.

in the past month, God has showm me lots. one thing he showed me i said i would write a blog about, but its not time for that one yet.

right now God is telling me to ask him to show me people how he sees them. so i have been. i have been praying i see everyone around me through his eyes. with some friends i have come to see not only who they are and how God sees that part, but how God sees who they will be. i have almost cried seeing friends and who they are going to become.

God also showed me who other friends were supposed to be. and i did actually cry. becasue he was showing me who they were supposed to be when he created them. who they weren't becoming.

he showed me even more about a few friends and had me speak to them. had me tell them the things they need to hear to progress towards who he has shown me they will be.

and today in chapel, i realized something. i see al these christians around me and i pray for God to have me see them the way he sees them. beautiful children searching for his will. he takes delight in seeing them search for him. and thus i take delight in seeing them search for him. two weeks from now i will be at home again. i will be out of the simpson bubble. i will see people who are not striving after his will, but running from it. i am scared, and yet extremely hopeful that he will show me them the way he sees them too. that he will break my heart for the thingst hat break his heart.

okay. john's done working out, i can go to sleep/ update recessed. we will adjourn at a later date. at an earlier time.

OH MY GOODNESS! new 25 random tidbits-blog!

its been a few months since the last list of 25 ramblings.

1. i love my family.
2. i'm saddened that my little cousin has cried for an hour in her bathtub because she was too lonely, and wanted a sibling
3. i want another Dog.
4. i'm stoked beyond stoked that i get to play guitar at my home church tomorrow
5. i miss someone. okay, mabye more than one person.
6. my grandma is friends with becky weber. they sat on the mount of olives late one night this summer and prayed and talked about me and my siblings.
7. i'm scared i will run out of things to say.
8. i am going to wear migh hightop sneakers tomorrow at church and i kinda hope someone says something about them.
9. i think nolan burns and katie tam are the cutest couple i have seen at simpson. sorry to the rest of you.
10. i think whoever i end up with and i will be cuter than katie and nolan.
11. i'm wearing an alliance redwoods staff shirt for the third day in a row. (its my "at home laundry")
12. i have had turkey for five meals since thanksgiving dinner. (including the t-giving dinner)
13. i just realized all my friends from highschool robably hate seeing my status updates that are super spiritual on facebook.
14. i don't really care...
15. OOH! God showed me some really cool stuff about a few friends and their friend and about me and my former friends last weekend. i want to share, but thats for another time.
16. i'm really super excited about when i do share that number 15 with people.
17. I got a really cool idea last night, but that one is between me and the people involved, when it happens.
18. i want to start a lectio divina group soon. next semester?
19. i need to find something to put my new stirring.org sticker on.
20. i need money.
21. i need food water shelter and love more than i need money
22. i think brian reagan is hilarious
23. i still love puns. even more so than last time i wrote one of these.
24. i have a friend who i call wife, another who i call love of my life. i do not like either of them in a romantic way.
25. when looking up words rhyming with died, i found only four syllable words online, and thought up a five syllable one myself. (unidentified)thats right, smarter than the internet.

okay, so twice in one day, both inspired by the same message.

tonight travis spoke again, and after the message, nate had everyone who felt stressed about the relational status they are not in hold out their hands. (if you're single, and stressed about marriage, or married and stressed about singleness. the second one made less sense to me) and everyone around me raised their hands. and i felt God telling me to wait. then nate said "and for some of you its not the stress, but realizing that God may be asking you to be single for a while, be it a year or ten. to commit to him that if he wants you to, you'll stay unattached so you can get up and go where he sends you." and God said to me "you're up."

the one thing i want the most in life is not to be a pastor. its not to be rich, or to be famous, or to be amazing at guitar. its not even a wife. its to have kids with my wife, and raise them to be God loving men and women. and tonight God asked me to give up my desire to be married. ever. i cfried. i clutched my chest. i didn't know how to take it. i just knew he told me to. so i told him "okay. its yours." and my hand that was clucthing my chest felt like it was holding my heart. not the thing we see on valenines day. but the muscle. just a pure blob of flesh squirting blood. and i held it out, slowly opened my hand, and told him, it was his. he looked down on me and said "okay, i'll hold it for you. then he wrapped my heart in his love. then he did somehting that shocked me. he put it back. myheart is wrapped in his love. it almost seemed that part of him became like a peice of foil around a baked potato that was my heart. and he told me, i need this, but i need it to be in you. and when i want to, i will let you have a wife and kids, but now you need to be okay with the fact you might not ever marry. i wanted to drop to the floor and sob.

but my heart was wrapped in him.

_______________________

i got back to school tonight and as i walked down the stairs to my room he told me i will marry and have kids. eventually, but before i do, he is going to do something. and i'm not sure what it is yet. and i don't get to know yet. i think it will be something that shapes me into a someone who can actually support a family, and be responsible for them. but i'm not sure if that will take a year or ten years or fifteen years. but i'm okay with that. scared, but okay.

today at the stirring

travis osbourne talked, and i figured something out... are you ready for this? you better be sitting. and make suere your laptop is not on your lap but safely on a table and out of flail range. i realized, i am Perfectly fine with being single... holy crap. SO AWESOME. oaky, thats all. if you want something more spiritual or lomnger, then read my last blog again. this is all you get today.

oh, and i broke my amp, so if you want to give me 100 bucks to fix it you can.

My Psalm

God, help.
I feel extremely unintelligent right now.
Extremely idiotic.

Those around me look and see that life is going well.
They say “Andrew has it together." and "I love Andrew”
I know they say it. They say it to me a lot. So why don’t I feel it?

A feeling of loneliness seems as though it will drown my hope.

Why do I feel as though none of them love me?
I think I am the one who drifts randomly between groups of friends and never grows close to any of them. and seems to never grow up at all.

But you love me.
You affection towards me IS like an sloppy wet kiss.
Not two teenagers making out in the halls when they sold be in class, but like a couple, Married for twenty years, who still has that spark, and who still continues to see the twinkle in each others eyes. They embrace and hold each other they do not notice the others around watching them. They know people are there, watching, but they ignore it, because the love is so Great it covers over all feelings of embarrassment.

I lie here in your arms.
They lift me.
They hold me to your face so you can whisper in my ear.
Your ever-strong, immensely gentle voice tells me “You Are Loved.”
Then “I love you. That is why I created you. To be loved by me. And to love me. And to show others how to love me. And to show the world what it looks like to cry and laugh with Joy in MY presence. To ramble on in your blog while you smile and stare at your ceiling like an idiot,because you want to look up at me.”

And again “you are loved”





and now i post things that seem rather personal because you called me to be an example.

I sit here inside on a cloudy day and bask in the sunshine of your love.

Father, remind me of your love. remind me that i am Yours. that you created me and that your fingerprints are all over me.
Jesus, let me continue to remember that you laid down your life for me to show me your love.
Holy spirit, be here to guide me and to keep me company as i journey towards you. let me ever be reminded that you are here to help me in every way possible, be it miraculous or mundane. continue to whisper in my ear that You love me and that i need to look to you to feel wholly loved, and not to others. remind me not to blame it on them, and not to despair, but to turn back to you. compared to your love, their love is simply an added benefit.

God, i am yours. use me.

And I feel comforted. And I feel ready to go out and conquer the world for you. But first I need to do some homework.

Chuppah. again

on sunday two things happened. one, i blew a tube in my amp, so i had to borrow one. lame. but i fixed it today, so all ends well.

two, nate spoke about sex. he likes doing that. he finds a reason to every year. and every tie he does i sit and listen and pay close attention to everything he says. see, i won't need to use any of the stuff he says for a few years, so i just file it all away in the back of my mind. this time i reflected a lot. i listened as nate spoke about how the song of songs the lover (solomon) talks to his beloved( his wife) and builds her up. they are in the bridal chambers ready to consummate their marriage and he is affirming every part of her before he touches her. he stands there with his wife and tells her she is beautiful. at the begining of the book we see she does not like her body, and he spends the better part of a chapter telling her how beautiful she is. now, granted, they are about to get it on, but thats not the reason he is saying this, just to get her in bed. he is telling the love of his life "you are perfect in every way imaginable. you are even perfect in the ways i never imagined." its so beautiful. i feel really sappy for saying this. or rather that others will think me really sappy for having said this, but i want to be that guy. not only in the bridal chambers, about to make love to his wife, but i want the chance to tell my beloved, who ever she ends up being, that she is beautiful. i know God has me single and waiting now so i can try to describe his beauty to him (however impossible that may be) and i know taht when he gives me a wife, i will have had so much practice trying to describe him, i will be able to look at her and tell her how beautiful she is. i just hope i don't use the same words solomon used, cause no woman i have met wants her hair described as a flock of goats descending mt. gilead. thats just weird.

a sense of beloning, that makes me feel out of place.

i just re-read alot of my blogs. one in particular caught my attention. well, its the last on i re-read, so it was hard to miss...

i wrote a blog a while back on my attitude towards compliments in worship. int hat blog i said i do not appreciate compliments on my skills with a guitar, but appreciate compliments on my freedom to worship God. i still believe that. i pray i never stop believing that. the weird part was when i started thinking about the compliments i have gotten this year at school. a rather considerable number of people have come up to me adn told me they like listening to me playing guitar. on the one hand, i am on chapel band and at the stirring, so they hear me play a lot, but i think if you take the number of compliments and spread them out over the hours of playing this past month over any other month, i have gotten more comments this month by far. and i realized, i appreciated at least half of them more than i usually do. to some, i still feel awkward when i hear them tell me i was good, but to others, i earnestly tell them thank you, and that i appreciate their comments. and i realized, it was the people i am close to, and the ones i want to be close to whose compliments i take to heart. oyu see, i know their hearts. one of my biggest fears is that people will hear us playing music and go to their dorm rooms and write a blog about the awesome solo, or the cool bassline. i want people to meet God. when people who i don't know well tell me i sounded good, i am afraid that they missed the whole point. i have come to the conclusion that i only like it when most people tell me they liked worshiping with us (whatever band i play with) and for a select few, i absolutely love it when they tell me i sounded good. that is because with those select few i know their hearst are right, and that if i sucked,they would tell me "thank you for worshiping, and i loved it. and your guitar was out of tune, and you started taht song in the wrong time signature..."

so if really love you, then come tell me i sound good. if not, shut up :) (in case you can't tell, that sentence was utterly LOADED with sarcasm.)

i am a lover and a fighter (longest blog yet?)

i am a lover and a fighter. i love people. its what i do. we'll get to the fighter in me later. you see, at the stirring we are in our "Under the Chuppah" series. (pronounced 'hoop-ah') the Chuppah was, and is, the ceremonial cannopy that jewish couples stood under at their weddings. after the wedding the couple would make love under the Chuppah to consumate the marriage. then the bridal party would take the Chuppah and hold it over the bride and groom for seven days of parties and feasts. Nate has always talked about putting love and marriage and sex and dating back under the Chuppah. you see, when the groom stood under the Chuppah and waited for his wife, God was there with him, waiting. when the bride walked down to meet her groom God was walking her. so when they met, they met in God, under the Chuppah, and God brought them together. but we insist that we go find our own lovers. to wait with God under the chuppah means to be with God, waiting for him to walk your wife to you. for the woman, to walk with God to your husband requires that you walk with God. if your loved one decides to not be and walk with God then you have the choice of whether they stay with God and miss out on them, or to stay with them, and miss out on God. i choose to stay with God.
but also, the Chuppah was a place where the couple was surrounded by friends who followed them everywhere to bless their marriage. i like that imagery. when you are under the Chuppah, oyu are surrounded by your frineds as they take delight in assisting you in keeping yourself alligned with God. and when your walk with God takes you to a woman, they walk with you. and when your walk with God takes you and that woman to a a feast or party, they walk with you. the imagery is amazing. when ate talked about this, i had this image in my mind.
on one side you have two people, holding hands under a Chupppah. you have a priest behind them, and you have their frineds holding the chuppah. on the other side you have a person unde the chuppah, witha priest and friends and everything, but the person is holding on to something. they are struggling to keep this thing up in the air. when you look closer you see that the stage they are on is the same size as the Chuppah, and just outside the chuppah is this person's spouse. they are not under the chuppah, or on the stage, but are out doing their own thing. the spouse under the Chuppah is trying to pull them into it, and thus is having to lean out from under it.

under both of these Chuppahs, i then saw a brightness. it was the Glory of God. right in the middle of the first Chuppah. between the people. the top of it seemed to be between their faces, but it also seemed to be flowing down upon them. it shone so bright it bounced off the Chuppah and hit their faces again. the bottom of it was a blurry line somewhere between their hearts and their hands, which were holding one anothers. the priest was behind them, and he was performing the ceremony. around them was group of friends,and around them was a crowd of angels. all of the angels somehow had their faces in to see the beauty of the wedding, but also had their faces out, ready to protect that beauty.
under the other Chuppah there was the wife on the left side of the chuppah (from the audience's point of view) and she was pulling her husband-to-be up the side of this stage. she was holding onto one of the posts, and she was struggling to stay in the Chuppah herself. her friends were there, but they were not holding the cannopy up, they were holding it in place. she was pulling so hard against it to keep him from falling she was about to upset it. and in the middle of the Chuppah was a priest, who was praying for her. and there was the Glory of God again, but it was glowing not on her face, but near her back, because she was turned. it was glowing of the chuppah and lighting the path a different way for her. it showed the empty portion of the Chuppah. where the husband usually stands. and on that side you could see men standing. it was the friends of another man, who were off somewhere else holding his Chuppah up. he was close, and all she had to do was turn. but she would not. the angels in this case were not standing guard of the couple, but were split. some were there to pul her back. they were pulling her into the Chuppah just like her friends were, but it seemed from their faces as though they were pulling her away from the edge, and away form her would have been husband. the other half of the angels were standing under him, reay to catch him when he let go. and there, under him, were his friends waiting for him to fall. i can't tell if they were friends waiting to help him recover and grow in God, or just simply waiting for him to fail. and when he finally falls, she will be able to look down and see him rebuild his life. eventually, he will rebuild it so she does not have to look down, but simply over. but she cannot be the one who goes down to help him recover, because then she will be getting of her stage again. and out form under her Chuppah. out of he Bright shining glory of God.

then i looked back and saw the first couple. and i realy wanted to be that guy.

why is it that all of my deep moments lately have lead to me knowing there is a daughter of Christ out there who needs to be told that she is beautiful and that Christ loves her? and why is it that all of those moments lately lead me to wanting to find her and be the one who tells her that every day for the rest of her life?
yep., i want to love someone. and i am having trouble with that right now. i'm stuck in a fight between wanting to love someone, and knowing i need to rest in the fact that God wants me single right now. and chances are that once i'm finally ready to be single, he'll throw someone at me. so i fight this internal struggle. and thus i'm a lover and a fighter.

two years ago i wrote a blog about the number four. its really good. i might import it from my myspace. this is one like that. its about the number 61. (oh, and i started writing this on the 17th, but its close to midnight and i probably won't finish in time.) i chose 61 because of a few reasons. one, its the number of days in any two consecutive months (unless those months are july and august, or january and february, or february and march)and its the number of days til my birthday.


61 months ago i was a counselor at junior high camp. i prayed with a kid who had just accepted christ. his face, his smile, is the most joy filled face i have ever seen.
61 weeks ago i was working kitchen at camp, and i heard God talk to me above the dish washer.
61 days ago i was driving home from a long day of climbing after work at camp.
61 hours ago i was eating dinner with my family on a friday.
61 minutes ago i was on facebook.
61 seconds ago i was in the bathroom. 61 seconds from now i'll be in the next paragraph.

See? i told you i would be.
61 minutes from now, i'll be deciding if this blog is anywhere near worthy to be online.
61 hours from now, i'll asleep. i willhave gotten back from youth group, where we are playing the same two songs that we sang last time we played. take it all(by hillsong), and everything(by lifehouse) just two weeks later. see, our youthgroup doesn't know how to worship God during music. see, they haven't had a steady band in 61 months. so most of them weren't in youth group yet. actually, none of them were in youth group yet. half of them don't come on sundays, and the other half all are very helpful with our childrens ministry. that means they don't sing anything on wednesdays, and they hardly sing anything on sundays. the only exposure these kids have to music that glorifies God is once a summer at camp. so we are trying to introduce them to it.

61 days from now, i'll be 21. twenty one. that means i can drink. in a sense its a bigger birthday than 20. you can't really do anything cool at 20 that you couldn't at 19, except ride in a car with someone who got their liscence int eh past 6 months, which isn't that cool. and since i'll be at simpson, i won't drink for another two months afer that. two months. 61 days.

61 weeks from now i'll be 22, and in my senior year of college. well, its supposed to be my senior year. we'll see if i keep on track like that. i kinda doubt it. but i'll be a senior. when my mom was that age, she was married. weird.

61 years from now i'll be 81 years old. i probably won't rock climb anymore. i hope i'll at least still be able to play guitar. i'll be married. i'll have kids. my kids will have kids. my kids's kids, might be getting married, and having kids.
thats right. 61 years from now, i could be a great grandpa. WHAT! yeah,. thats crazy. seriously, take a second and think about that. 60 years from now, when you are old and grey, (or bald...) what will your grand kids look like? they will be as old as i am now. or older. 60 years from now, if you are still alive, you could be holding your great grandkids. or, you could have them sitting on your lap. or they will be to old to sit on your lap. if every generation in my family has kids at 25, when i'm 81, my grand kids will be 6. and i''l be 81, so my lap might be too fragile for them! crazy. this blog was supposed to be artsy with the numeric symmetry, not scary and putting life in perspective.

61 decades from now, no one will know my name. i will be the old name in the family bible that no one knows about. i will just be another name. and next to my name it will say "1988-" and after that will be another number. thats it. all this has happened, and will happen, and then i'm Gone. but then I'm in heaven.

and i won't be a counselor at a camp, and i won't be hearing God over the noise of a dishwasher. cause he will be right next to me. i will just look at his face and talk to him. i won't be eating, but i'll be with my family. i won't have to lead worship at youth group, cause jesus will be right there. and i won't be deciding anything about blogs, and i won't be talking about my age, or watching where the wild things are. and i won't be holding my great grand kids on my ever-so-fragile lap, and i won't be in the bathroom. i'll be kneeling at jesus' feet.
and i'll be smiling.

hold me jesus

rich mullins wrote a song called hold me jesus.
watch the youtube video, then i'll finish talking.



anyways, yeah. for some reason when i hear this song it reminds me of how big God is. the sad part about this song is that rich mullins died about ten years ago. i had no idea who he was then, except as the guy who wrote "Awesome God" side note: he also wrote the song creed. for those of you who know garrett viggers, check out his website (garrettviggers.com) and watch a video of third day recording creed with brandon heath and garrett on the dulcimer

okay. anyways, the bridge of this song is the best part.

Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight You for something
I don't really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I've beat my head against so many walls
Now I'm falling down, I'm falling on my knees

that part made me begin to tear up. considering the fact that i am really thirsty, i probably would have cried just now listening to it. this blog is not eloquently worded, it is not my best writing, and definitely not my most humorous, but this song speaks so much to me, i had to write it.

update ramble.

once again, i am writing a blog that i hope turns into something worthwhile. today i led worship at church again. josh was speaking, and i hadn't led in a while, so he told me i was singing. i spent about ten minutes last wednesday picking the set, so i felt like i might not be able to get into the songs. i usually take forever to choose music that speaks what my heart is try to tell me, and fits with the message so it takes like three hours. since this time was short i feared i would not feel into the songs by Sunday. that was far from true. today i loved the songs i had chosen. every song we played moved me. when i play i love to watch others worship God. today i feel like i only opened my eyes one time per song, and i didn't look up when i did. as each song was coming close to its end, i thought about the feel the song had left me with. certain songs have certain feelings attatched, but thats not what i mean. there is a different part of my heart that is puled by each part of a song. truly amazing songs pull my whole heart, or pull one peice so hard it moves me. every song starts pulling on one part of my heart, adn moves what part it pulls through the song. and so when each song came to an end, i thought about what it was pulling, and what songs would fit next that would transition from that feeling well.

then i would open my eyes the one time. well, actually, i think they were open, but they were not looking at people, or at the walls, or my guitar, or anything. i was staring at Go. the only time i focused my eyes was when i looked at the set list to see what was next, and if it fit. each song pulled my heart in the perfect way. i was singing and unable to stop smiling. today God filled me with is Joy again, and i love it.

after a good set like today, where i am worshiping God, once the songs are over, the final dismissal-prayer has been said, and everyone is heading out to the fellowship hall to eat cookies and drink coffee (an every sunday tradition at our church) and i begin to put my guitars away, i begin to wonder something. its that nagging doubt that creeps into my mind. i wonder if i sounded good. like at all. was i in the right key? did i sing way too loud or too soft? did i miss any notes? now, if i completely messed up, i still worshiped God, so the service was great for me, and in a sense none of that matters. but i want to bring my best before God, so it does matter.

on the days where i question if i sounded even remotely good, God always surprises me. today a woman from our church, named patty, walked up and told me this "hi, i'm patty, and i want to say i love listening to you sing. i don't think i hear you sing very often, but it sounds Good. I love the whole band here. you guys worship God. i can hear in your voices and instruments that your hearts are in the right place, and you are worshiping God." that is the best compliment i have gotten. i think ever. last time she complemented me, she said my mandolin playing was better than my guitar playing. i have played guitar for 8 years now, and at that point i had played mandolin for about 5 hours. and so when i saw her walking up, i thought of that last one. a part of me braced for a complisult (you know, the compliments that kinda hurt)and then she said that. God is awesome.

and that phrase is still in my mind. "i can hear in your voices and instruments that your hearts are in the right place..."

um, overshare? a light into my commitment issues

i have commitment issues. but not the normal kind for a guy my age. when i like a girl, i commit to liking her. and it usually takes liking another girl to make me stop liking the first girl. and yes, this has come back to bite me in the but recently. theres a girl, who may be reading this, and she knows who she is, who i liked. i told her i liked her way before i should have, and then we flirted for awhile. then she told me we needed to be just friends and i agreed, and three months later i still really liked her. then i fell for a girl i met somewhere else, and battled over which of the two of them i liked more. for like two weeks, then i realized that maybe, just maybe, i needed to get over the first one, and not like the second either.

basically i think i like people too much. so when i like a girl, or even pretend to start to like a girl, i jump in. and it usually works out that i am an idiot, and sometimes it messes things up. in fact, to the aforementioned girl who knows who she is, i want to apologize for jumping the gun, cause it made things awkward between us. i hope we can still become better friends.

really this blog doesn't need to be posted, but it will be anyways. cause thats just what i do.

i guess i can make it seem better if i do this:
pray for me. that i find the line between over commitment and under commitment.

fiddler on the roof

i just watched the fiddler on the roof with my family.
i love that movie. now, to start, the chracters are mostly jewish, so i do have some disagreements with them theologically, like i believe jesus Is the messiah, and they talk about still waiting for him. the weird thing is that i LOVED the theological ideas behind alot of things.
first off, the dialouge. when the jews are being kicked out of their town because they are jewish, one of them (the name escapes me right now, but he was the son inlaw, and the tailor) turns to the rabbi and says "rabbi, we have waited here so long for the messiah, wouldn't now be a good time for him to come back?" the rabbi repsons " we'll wait somewhere else." i love the line. it reminds me that no matter where we are Christ is there.
when the main character ( whose name i cannot spell, so won't even try) is deciding if he should abandon his daughter for marrying a gentile, or abandon his faith, he says "if i bend it (his core beleifs) i will break" granted i do not think we still need to disown people for interreligious marriages because christ told us to love, but the statement that he would break if his faith were forgotten is such an amazing statement.

the best part of the movie to me, that trumps all other parts, is how he prays. at one point he glimpses up at God with a look of confusion. it is as he is about to tell his wife that he is letting their daughter marry the tailor instead of the rich butcher. he looks at God with a face that just says" can i get a little help?" the way the character interacts with God inspires me. don't get me wrong, God is almighty and he deserves to be revered, but also he loves us. he wants us to feel comfortable in his arms. when i was a little kid and my dad held me i could turn and look at him in a face that said i loved him. i didn't need to say it, and i definitely didn't need to say " dear father. you are my father, and i love you. you and my mother made me, and you have raised me. thank you" i just had to look. he knew. i think we should be that way with God sometimes too. i want to be that way with God alot more than i am. to be so close with God that talking to him is almost casual.
also, he goes between talking to God and talking to himself in an instant. when his daughters ask him for his permission to marry, they suddenly are far off in the back ground to show that the talking he is doing is between him adn God, and not actually out loud. but half of the time he is saying things that sound like they should be between him and God, but the other half of the time he is saying things taht sound like simple reasoning. when he says "on the other hand..." the twenty time she says it, its just his mind measuring the pro's and cons. i think prayer and thought are linked. i want praying to be as casual as thinking. i want thought to be involved in prayer. i'm tired of people not thinking while they pray, and not praying while they think.

if you don't know what i mean watch the movie fiddler on the roof and pay attention to how he prays. it might change your life. like seriously, it might.

the godliest man i have ever known

Charles Albert Peterson, the Godliest man i know, died this morning at 6:00. he was 93 years old. to describe to you how Godly he was would take me until i was 93 myself, so i will give you the highlights. he was an army veteran, spent most of his life as a ranch hand, never married, but had more friends that he valued more deeply than i could ever dream to have. his list of emergency contacts, which he kept in his wallet listed things like which hospital he liked, his doctor, PG&E, and a few other things, but the first number on it was my dad, who was his pastor for 15 years. my father has been taking extra time lately to visit Charles, since we knew he was dying ( he has had throat cancer for a year now.) he graduated high school when he was 16.he was an expert gardener and was gardening my church's 4 acre lot when we moved to California and kept it up for the first few years.

he told my Dad that no one would be allowed to stand up and talk about his life at his funeral. he wrote that the pastor giving a summary of his life would "suffice." he wanted the pastor to preach. he wanted his life to bring others to Christ, and he wanted his death to do the same.

my dad talked to his care giver and learned some amazing things. first of all, he died today as his care giver was getting ready for the day. Elliot, the care giver stopped in at 5:30 to check on him. Elliot took went away, and came back and Charles had passed. he held on until Elliot had checked.

the biggest thing to me is that Elliot had heard him talking one morning in his room. he had heard Charles saying something along the lines of "Why am i still here? why can't i come home now?" Elliot talked about how Charles was really ready to pass. Charles was not afraid at all of death. he wanted to be with his maker.

that's how i want to be when i get close to my death. i have had conversations with God before, and once or twice it has been out loud, but i always kept quiet enough that no one would hear it. i want to be so close to God that i talk in a full conversation-volume voice to him. i want to be like that so much that I'm crying just thinking about it. about his Heart for God.

in the past few months Charles has not been able to eat. he has barely been able to sip water. he was down to a few sips per day because his throat cancer was so bad. Charles was not afraid at all of death. he wanted to be with his maker. to be face to face with God.
now he is.

piggy plague

yep, i said it. or at least reffered to it. swine flu. there, now i said it. i know i'm at the tail end of a sickness of some sort, and i think its the dreaded H1N1! which is funny, cause i'm really not THAT sick. well, the fever, the full body aches and the headaches were pretty bad on Wednesday afternoon, and also pretty bad on Thursday morning. but not as bad as other flu's i have had. best thing? i didn't let it distract me from worshiping God these past two weeks ( oh, i was on the band at camp leading around 230 people each week in worshiping God.)in fact, it was the first time i got sick and found a deeper meaning. yep, I'm weird like that now.

everytime i woke up feeling horrible, head throbbing, dehydrated from the massive ammounts of sweat (which every morning i thought was evidence that the fever had broken. nope.) eyes throbbing form my head being on fire, and my throat so SORE from the snot dripping down it while i slept that i was carrying around little honey packets when i sang, it made me think of something it made me remember that i live in a broken world.

thats right, my piggy plague reminded me of the fall of man, which in turn reminded me of sin, which lead to God's saving Grace. so i woke up every morning thinking about how sick i was and thanking God for loving me so much. weird. but really cool.

and then i realized something. i know when i'm as sick as i was/stil am i need alot of rest.but at the same time when i was sickest i wanted to do the most. i wanted to impact the world for God as much as i humanly could. and then some more. i really wanted to force jesus down everyones throats in the best way i could:love them. and at camp there are a few ways i could love them. see, i'm an employee and to me helping people on challenge courses really is a form of ministry. and i'm also on the band, so playing guitar is a form of misitry as well. i aslo have the ability to relate to people and make friends, and i see that as a way to build up my fellow beleivers, and thus its a form of ministry too. so i had three huge "take all day" tasks and had to do them all at once. add into thtat the fact that i was sick so only haad about 40% of my normal energy to spend, and yes, i wiped myself out.

all in all God used me though. there will probably be another blog or two about it soon, but now i need to get some rest.

with love,
Andrew

appreciation and music

i realized tonight that i no longer feel grateful when people tell me i do a good job at something. well, i do, but with certain things i kind of wish they wouldn't say it. when someone at work tells me thank you for running their challenge course, i say " you're welcome it was my pleasure" and i mean it. when i let someone into my lane and they do the weird wave thing one the freeway, i feel kinda good (sometimes) but when people tell me " you sounded really Good on guitar today" i don't feel appreciated. it used to be that i would be so proud wen they said it. or i would be embarrassed and say "yeah i only messed up a few times ( cause i do EVERY service) but lately i have noticed i don't feel fulfilled, i don't feel better for their liking my music. i feel let down alot of the time. i don't play on sundays for their entertainment, but i also don;t do it for them really at all. i get up on stage and worship God. i know God appreciates my music, and i know he is proud of me. that is never affected by their compliments ( or insults for that matter, if i ever received any) i don't want people to hear me playing guitar and be impressed. i don't want people to sit in their seats or stand near them and listen to me play and sing, and then thank me. i want them to stand and sit and kneel and lie on their faces, and just BE in the presence of God. and i want them to thank Him. if after that they come and thank me for that, i'm fine. i have absolutely no problem with them thanking me for my heart. for my willingness to serve, for my gifts being given Back to God. i have no problems with any of that. cause to me i'm doing all of that, not playing guitar. playing guitar is what i do at nine every night ath annoys my family. or on Saturdays when no one is at church and i go and plug in and mess around.

when i play sudnays (or any other time i lead people into worship) i do it for a few reasons. God wants my best, and i feel he has given me a talent, i should give it back. i worship differently with a guitar in my hands than i do just listening. i also do it because i like to lead others into God's presence because i feel He has called me to and i want to help others when i can. i do it because i like to see others worship, and honestly, you have a better view of people from on stage.

after saying all of that, i have no problem when a person comes and says " thank you for worshiping God. i enjoyed watching you." or something like "it made it easier for me" but i want those people who say that to say the same thing to people who are not on stage. to the person sitting two rows behind you who has the horrible voice and you can hear their flat squeals above the music because they are belting it out for God. i'm not saying you should lie, i'm saying you need to learn to appreciate the person's heart too.
my favorie person to watch worship would have to be a guy at school. he's one of the worst singers i know, and he knows it. but he doesn't care. he sings his heart out to jesus. and i love it. when i sit next to him, i thank him for worshiping before i thank anyone on the band.
first come to a point where you can thank the person next to you for worshiping beside you. then come thank me.

recently, my life has had nothing of note

but together, there is almost enough stuff to write a blog about
a week ago i cut my finger open, and today is the first time i'm trying to type normally again since then. and its not going good. i've made about twelve typo's in this part so far.

i played mandolin on sunday, and it went pretty good. i only made a few mistakes ( which is pretty cool sinc e i usually mess up once every other song on Guitar, which i Know how to play...) but i kept it simple, and played the same two chord shapes all day. after the service a lady i've never seen before came up and complimented me on my mandolin playing. her compliment was " i really like the diversity. you sounded awesome. just about as good as you did on guitar last week"

my first impression of this comment was a sincere thankful attitude, and an apprecation of her positive feed back. about two and a half seconds later, i thought of two thigns. the first was if she had heard me play before last week. if she hasn't, then really she's basing my mandolin playing on last week, and i played some pretty weird stuff last week. ( a few points where is sounded like i was a shredder on guitar, and i'm not) if she has heard me play guitar multiple weeks, and i've never seen her before, that means she didn't like it as much, cause she hasn't ever come up on stage to say anything, thus i don;t recognize her. then the other thought hit me.
is this a compliment to my mandolin skills, or a major diss to my guitar skills? cause i've now been "playing mandolin" for ten days. i've been playing guitar for 7 or 8 years. andreally anyone with three fingers on their left hand, two on their right, and a sense of rythm could play the stuff i played, so maybe she just undervalues my guitar playing.
oh well, i guess i'll just take it as a compliment and move on

today i went to pick lauren up from the air port, and on the way back i realized i am really stiff. but not the cool stiff where its like " oh! yesterday was so awesome cause i rock climbed!" but more like "i need to be less of a slug, cause my muscles have atrophied. and i get this whole week off, so now i'm going to be really lazy. :(
anyone want to go climbing?



oh, and i'm writing a song, but i'm writing at about one line per week, so don;t expect it to be done. ever.

i'm a hopeless rambler.

sorry, i just need to type something.

it is 11:06 PM and i am tired. but i want to write. not much has happened since last time i blogged, and yet, i forget when i blogged last. let me check. okay. i bought an amp, then liked a song. that's the last you have heard from me.

so here's whats new. in the past seven days i have gone climbing four times, and done better each time. which is new for me. i usually get sore from climbing and can't climb well for two or three days. i think i'm finally seeing some muscle build 0 or at least tone up, not necessarily build in size, but in strength)



today was the youth group yard sale, i brought home a few things. i got a hat. its one of those ones with the ear flaps, but its made out of sheep skin, and its so fuzzy i feel cold when i pick it up, just so i can like that i feel warm when i put it on. i alos bought some bear foot shaped house slippers. they are amazing. they do need to be cleaned, so i can't wear them yet, but soon i will be stomping around like smokey. i also got a hand painted chess set which is made to be the incas or aztecs( not sure which) vs. the conquistadores. SO awesome, and indie. and i got a brass sailboat model that is currently at church sitting on my amp. i thin its cause i want each set i play to be like a voyage.
aside from the yard sale, it was also a work day at church. which means i am exhausted.
last night i could not sleep. see i went climbing last saturday, monday, tuesday, and thursday. wednesdaay was youth group, and i ran around a middle school playing capture the flag. and sunday i played on the band ( which is way more tiring than anyone ever wats to admit) but friday i did something different. i watched tv. all day. actually, i played mandolin for like six hours, but still, nothing active. so last night i had WAY too much energy. i spent four hours last night in bed thinking about climbing. all that is to say this: when i don't climb, i loose sleep thinking about the next time i climb. that sentence makes me happy.

okay, so tomorrow is a sunday again, which means its kind of a big deal. so good night, i pray you sleep well, but that at some time God talks to you and doesn't let you sleep until you listen.

its 11:26 and i'm still tired, and i just wasted 20 minutes writing a stupid blog that means nothing.

new favorite song

you bring by hillsong united. my new favorite song. musically its awesome. the guitar parts chime and sparkle, the bass parts flood your chest cavity, and the drums become the beat that drives your heart.

but lyrically its confusing. and in the confusing parts you have to thin. and in that, its even better than the music side.

my favorite part ofthe song:

first verse, first half.

"Oh You bring hope to the hopeless
And light to those in the darkness
And death to life
Now Im alive "
you bring death to life now i'm alive. at first i thought of it the same way he says the light to dark and hope to hopeless. where it seemed like he was saying christ brings death with him and puts it in where life (AKA deathless-ness) used to be, the same way he brings hope with him and puts it where hopelessness and despair used to be. the same way he takes light and puts it in where dark used to be (AKA light-lessness) in that case he Must be talking about chirsts death, and then immediately he talks about being alive himself. which is pretty cool. to state it that way. to point out it is a good and amazing thing that christ brings hope and light to those without, then brings his own death out of love.


but lyrically that doesn't work. cause the beauty is not from Christs death. its from his ressurection. without the resurrection Christianity loses its point. the good teacher, the morale man, the rabbi is a bad teacher whose students made up a story of him coming back to life, the morale man a liar, and the rabbi simply denied by the jews if we take away Christs power, and thus his ressurection.
and besides, the pattern of the song is about bringing bad things into a better state of existance. the hopeless have hope. the ones in the dark have light. so the ones in life cannot be given death and told it is good.
rather, jesus brings hope with him and gives it to the hopeless. he brings light and shines it in the dark places. and by doing those tings he takes the dead. he takes us. he takes death itself and brings it into life.
if death is simply the lack of life for something that should be alive, and you bring it to life, you make a bad thing better.

he goes and grabs death and brings it to life, then we are alive.

if you could see my facial expressions and hear the way i want this to be emphasized (from every rooftop in every city in the world. and on the barn roofs between the cities too)you would see that blog words will never do justice to the vast expanse that is how AMAZING our God is and how much i am in awe of it ( the first part you can tell even without hearing/reading what i have to say/write about this song, but the part where i am in awe is the important part.

Money! Music!

yesterday i went to best buy. see, all best buys now sell a few guitars. they all sell the fender starcaster and the gibson maestro. basically, if the best company in the world made the worst guitar they could, thats what guitar best buy sells. they come for 150 with an amp, cable, and case. the most valuable part of the whole deal is honestly the gig bag.

but santa rosa best buy goes WAY beyond. they sell good stuff. no. really, they sell GOOD STUFF. they sell amps that cost over 1000 dollars on reputable websites, for the same price as the reputable websites sell them for. and the same with guitars. so my brother told me they sold vox and fender amps, and i happen to need an amp, and like both vox and fender stuff. so i went in yesterday just to see what they had. i walk in, find the amps, and look at the vox shelf. there it is. the vox AC15. my dream amp ( well the cheapest of my three dream amps) then i look at the price tag, and it reads "$759.87" and i think to myself "well thats a rip off musicians friend sells it for 599.99" but i figure, hey, its best buy, they don;t usually sell good stuff. so i look at the amp to see if its plugged in, because i still want to play it. i look over at the guitar rack and find the guitar i want to use, then i realize, this is not the ac15. it is not the cheapest of my dream amps for 150 over the list price. it is in fact the AC30. and amp that is twice as loud, and twice as beautiful that usually costs 1299.99. it is the second of my dream amps for less than two thirds the minimum sale price on musicians friend.
so i ask the guy for a cable cause i want to play the amp. he grabs one and walks over to get me set up. i tell him about the ac15 dream and how this is just as cool.
he says he'll look it up cause it sounds like something they would carry.
i start jamming on the guitar
he comes back and tells me that they do not carry any more vox high end amps right now because they need to sell the floor model of the ac30 first since it's last years model. so they are selling it for 607.83. which is what they bought it for from the manufacturer. i almost peed my pants


my dream amp. my dream amp the nicer one. my nicer dream amp for the price i would pay for the not quite as nice one. and i have 200 dollars less than that to my name.
oh what a shame




praise God. today was pay day. i now own a vox AC30. and its amazing. you should be jealous.
granted it is on the loud side, but even at low volumes it sounds better than the amp i was using. today is a good day.

i am no longer an electric guitarist who has half an amp. i am now an electric guitarist who has an amp and a half.

babies!

lately i have been thinking about this whole idea of baby names (i think because one of the couples at church named their son Andrew)and for some reason today while i was showering i was thinking of the significance of names.


my name is Andrew Jonathan Ratiani.

Andrew means Man. its the greek version. the hebrew version is Adam. adam kalanquin and i are pretty similar. the thing is that the greek version from which we derive andrew has more of a warrior sense to it. i'm slightly more violent that adam is.

most people i know really fit their names, or have some connection. lauren means by the bay, or laurel plant. my dad used to sail. alot. joshua means "yahweh is salvation" or "the lord saves." and he is a pastor, son of a pastor and brother of a future pastor. josh's father inlaw, doug swinburne is not only a pastor himself, but also has a brother,nephew, three son inlaws (including josh) and a fatherin-law who are all pastors. pastors typically preach that God saves...
there are others i could mention but not all of them are nice...

so i want to think about what i want my kids to be named. i got in the shower and decided i had though enough about baby names. then i started thinking about how i was named. there is a reason my parent chose my name, but theres a littel short story first.

see, i'm the fourth child my mother gave birth to, and i'm one of her three children. there was Joshua Daniel (named after the old testament characters) then Lauren Michelle ( i'm not sure why they chose Lauren, but i think Michelle had to do with it being the female version of Michael, the angel, but don't quote me on that) then there was the third.
his name was David Andrew Ratiani. my mother went into labor at around the five month mark, and he didn't survive. my parents chose to name him David because they wanted him to be a man after God's own heart. the Andrew part was chosen to be his first name by my siblings, but my parents still went with David. Andrew was chosen after the disciple.

when they had me they named me Andrew because that was his middle name. my middle name is Jonathan because Jonathan was David best friend in the bible.

i'm named in memory of him.

at first when i found this out i thought "okay, that's kinda cool to know why they chose that"

lately i have been thinking about this whole idea of baby names (i think because one of the couples at church named their son Andrew) and i decided to name my first son David. now freshman year the first roommate i met was David yang, and he was a great guy. sophomore year i roomed with D-Rush, whose real name is David (even though no one calls him that but his girlfriend) but neither of them are the reason. if they both were named Josh, my first born son's potential name would not be josh, even though my brother's name is josh.

David and the hebrew word for beloved (which, when written with English letters,is Yedid, and what i want to get tattooed on my wrist) come from the same word, but thats only a small part

David was a man after God's own heart. he screwed up, and made horrible mistakes, but he still feared the lord more than he feared man, and God told his descendants way down the lineage that He was sparing their lives because of David. i want that for my kids (when i have them)


then i got thinking about a middle name for the aforementioned kid named David. so far i'm thinking either some old testament prophet, or Adam. probably something biblical though.
although i might pull out an old family tradition from my fathers mother's side and make his middle name Gordon.

i also figured out a good girls name that i really like, but i forget what it was.

(edit): i remembered the girls name. Hannah. she was the mother of sammuel, and even after praying for something for so long she finally had a son, and gave him to God. i think thats a cool thing. also all the people i know named hannah are cool people. plus hannah and Ratiani don't clash.

with my last name i can't do anything ending in an "ee' sound. rhyming with my last name is no good.
neither is a name that starts or ends with an R. so Hannah and David both work.

Blogging on the clock.

i'm by myself in the office right now. listening to hillsong at a level i'm probably not supposed to. i just got busted by a coworker for having my laptop on my desk. i do that because tey used to not ahve a problem with me being on facebook if i used my own computer. turns out now i can't have a laptop out. its "unproffesional." so my laptop was out. cause i wasn't here for ther past 8 montsh and don't know the new rules. i thougt i was being smart because i was leaving the camp computer open for camp stuff. oh well. so aynyways, i was breaking four rules when i thought i was just bending one.

and the stupid phones just broke,

and we're out of calling cards. and all the kids want to call mommy. :(

and so far office has beenridiculous. i work here at camp so i can have fun, always be active and not have to deal with too many guest com[plaints (aside from "i can't do it!" when really they can go off a zipline). today has been alot of complaints, things going wrong, stuff i don't know the answers to, and alot of crazy hectic stuff. and i'm just sitting here in a chair, doing nothing, i hate working office.

but i still smile when the guests walk in. cause its my job.



i'm listening to hold me now by hillsong united. i love this song. theres a part in the chorus that goes
no weaping
no hurt or pain
no suffering
you hold me now
you hold me now

no darkness
no sick or lame
no hiding
you hold me now,
you hold me now

josh pointed out the fact that it says no sick or lame and it could sound like the sick and lame people in heaven

and thats clearly not the case. cause god loves people no matter what. thats called unconditional love. so what the song must mean is that there won't be any sickNESS or LameNESS(is that a word?) in heaven, cause the sick and lame will be healed. i like the way they use sick and lame to mean the sickness and the paralysis, not the people. they are not defined by their disabilities. the diusabilities are jsut a part of how they are now, not who they are. on that grounds i like it.

high school girls

as you might know, i work at alliance redwoods.
i'm a program staff employee, meaning i send kids off ropes courses and take them rock climbing and biking and the like. the cool thing about our camp is that we have the schools and church groups bring their own counselors. this wway the kids get to know people who they will see for more than a week, but still have a naturalist they grow close to at camp. tis means i work with alot of kids and quite a few counselors at my job. usually a group contains 3 cabins and their counselors, so around 20 kids, and three adults. this gets semi challenging, considering that if i have to spend too much time trying to disci0line the kids i lose track of things and people can get seriously injured (cause usually they are hanging on a rope that is only holding them because i am working)all in all we manage, cause the counselors are there to keep their kids in line.

my least favorite part is when the counselors are younger than me.
this week was one of those weeks.
all my counselors were in high school. one of them talked about three years ago when he was a camper. three years meaning he was in sixth grade, and now he's a freshman. and he is supposed to keep sixth graders in line? luckily he was the younger of the two guy counselors, so while the older one was busy flirting with the girl counselor, he was able to keep track of the boys. (at that age girl campers take care of themselves pretty well)

but thats not why i am writing this. that was on thursday. i am writing this to talk about wednesday. my morning and afternoon sessions were spent on the leap of faith.
the morning group i was working with scarlett who is a rather quiet girl and is really gentle hearted. (thatis sometimes a good thing, but not when she is in charge of getting counselors to help with harnesses. )

so scarlett let me go up in the tree and she belayed. that means i was the one who had to convince the children (who had just climbed 75 feet up a tree) to jump for a trapeze bar. easy job. the problem was the counselors. the guy counselors were too busy talking to eachother about how they had pranked their campers the night before. and when they weren't doing that they were trying to impress the girl counselor. from 80 feet above them in a little tree i could easily see them. they really looked pathetic sitting there in their laid back male model poses with their best clothes on sitting on a dirty log trying to swat mosquitoes and look good. if they could have seen themselves they would have been embarrassed. luckily for them the girl counselor didn't seem to notice how stupid they were acting. see, she was busy the whole time checking me out. and before you get all mad and think i'm just being arrogant, scarlett said she heard one of the girls tell a girl from another cabin "my counselor thinks Ohana is hot" (Ohana is my camp name) i realized how sad it was that she was checking me out when all she could see was a silhouette 80 feet above her.

that afternoon i was working the leap by myself. luckily the flirting counselors and their groups were going on an educational hike, and i don't do those. so i was by myself with a new group on the leap of faith, and the counselors were extremely helpful. unfortunately two of the guys walked over and asked me how old i was. so i made them guess, and when they said "20?" i said yes. then one turned to the other and said "see? i told you he wasn't too old for her!" then promptly walked over to one of the girl counselors and talked to her.

so i made up my mind to grow a full beard, stop showering and start telling kids i'm 30 and homeless.

luckily today was an all guys group of paintball.

then again the second girl was kinda cute...
:)

God calls Samuel... I am samuel? or at least samuel-esque

today at church clurie spoke about life with God as an adventure, but first he talked about lsitening for God and how we have to wait and be silent first.
We read samuel 3 where God calls young samuel. its a good verse, the weird thing is that i went through something last night that relates.
i heard God call my name. he does that from time to time. talk to me, its pretty awesome and everytime i sit there in awe for half a second then respond " yes lord?" the weirdest thing was that last night, as i lay there trying to go to sleep early ( so like 11:30 as opposed to 4:00) he called me in a familiar voice. so it wasn't audible. he didn't actually displace any air molecules with a for-real sound wave. but i heard it in my head. the weird thing was the voice. it was my dad's voice. but ten times stronger and more authoritative. and an hundred times more gentle and loving.
other times God has done this it never had a voice attached. it was attitudes and words, but never a voice. this voice reminded me of how samuel heard God call and went to Eli, his master.
usually when God calls my name he tells me something after. he reassures me, or tells me to encourage someone, or reminds me He loves me, or even tells me to shut up and listen. last night he put the story from Samuel 3 on my mind, and that was it.

i now realize he was prepping me to hear what Clurie(our junior high pastor and soon to be youth pastor) was going to say this morning. he talked about following God and how we need to sit and listen. then he talked about how eventually since we have to sit for a while God will call us to get off our buts and do something. something hard. something awkward. something for Him. he talked about jonathan and his armor bearer attacking the philistines, he talked about a few other things. the part Clurie ended with was a challenge. he said "don't pray for God to bless you or love you or protect you. he already does that. pray for big things. and expect big things. oh, and pray for courage, cause when you pray for big things he does them then you have to go do scary things."

pray for big things.
i'm praying for God to wake me up in the middle of the night, or to keep me up late at night, and put people on my heart. to make me unable to sleep until i pray for them.
and i'm praying specifically for some friends to experience the same thing. so if you consider me a friend, get ready to pray when you were planning on sleeping, cause God has been keeping his end of the deal for me, so he might for you too. ( i'm secifically praying for a few epople, but also just for anyone i am close too. so if you fall into either of those categories, i'm sorry, but you might be kept/woken up. and honestly i'm not sorry.)

okay, thats all for today.

a good charity

i've been thinking about doing this for a while, but realizing it wasn't worth it. i need a new amp. i have for a while now, but i realized i could make my amp be good enough if i just replaced the tube. so i did. i took the old one out two weeks ago and ordered a new one. since the old one was shot i figured i might as well jsut leave the amp open and not waste my time putting it back together. so i haven't played through my amp in two weeks. good news: the tube showed up today! other good news:i put the tube in today and my amp no longer makes that random crackling noise. other good news: my amp no longer sounds thin! bad news: thats cause my amp doesn't sound. at all. no noise coming out of the stupid thing. so i officially am starting the "fund andrew's investment in an amp that actually works!" fund. all donations can be delivered to me personally, as i am the treasurer, and checks should be made out to "Andrew Ratiani" with a note saying either "amplifier" or "tone machine sweetness" or "vox ac15"

thank you for caring. just 600 dollars a day for one day can make a huge difference. also ask about our "two easy installments of $299" plan.
:)

my last three blogs

from the reactions of my last three blogs, i have decided to do one of two things. either A, get friends with no lives who have nothing to do but read all day, or B. write shoreter blogs. cause i wrote about 2000 words in twenty four hours between the listen part one and listen part two.

listen part two

the other part of lectio divina that you do when in a large group is sharing. josh and julie both shareda lot about the part of the psalm where it says "i have banked your word in the vaults of my heart so that i will not sin myself bankrupt."

in my new testament class a year ago we learned about the new testament concept of the human being. it was a five layer onion basically. each layer was seperate but learned from the layers around it. the layers went (from the middle to the outside) Heart, Mind, Body, Social life, Soul. the heart is what you feel. the mind what you think, and the body what you do. the soul is not part of the human being in philosophical terms but part of the human "becoming" meaning who you will be in the essential spiritual aspect. the heart mind and social character are all part of the becoming also, but the body gets replaced in the becoming. ( this is probably going right over all of your heads (all two people who are reading this)) but its okay, i barely get it and i took the class. anyways, banking something in your heart means it is locked behind the mind and body and social aspects of who we are. for an outsied force to get our body to sin us bankrupt it would need to corrupt our bodies which would corrupt our minds which would corrupt our hearts.

the thing is the new testament thinkers thought of the layers as having equal influence over the ones out side them and inside them. so the mind was effected by the body and the heart equally. the body by the social aspect and by the mind. and the heart was affected by the mind, but was also in contact with itself, being the inside circle. so if you place the word of God in your heart, your heart can only be affected by the mind and the word of God. it does not matter how your body is corrupted, there is always a desire to be redeemed if you have the word of God in your heart. the heart can also be called the spirit.

basically you can't screw someone up when they have the word of God in their hearts.


the other thing i thought about was the song " from the inside out" by hillsong. the main part i thought of was my heart and my soul, i give you control. consume me fromthe inside out" and "the cry of my heart is to bring you praise from the inside out lord my soul cries out "

the heart is the inside, the soul the outside. this is easy to figure out. the cool part is the cry of my heart would be something that influences the mind. and the mind cries it to the body, which cries it to the world around you. which declares it to your soul. for it to go from your heart to your soul, you must be a witness to the world. i really like that song, but now i like it more. to sing that song and not be a hypocrite means you are showing Jesus to the world around you in a tangible way.


thats really all i have to say for now. this blog was not eloquently written, and i did not explain half of what i eluded to, but whatever, dinner is ready. at least i kept this shorter than the last two so people can actually read it...

listen one

so my brother has taken our young adults group down a new path. he wrote a blog about it a few months back. i don't feel like going into detail. its called a LIFE cycle. eaach letter of life stands for something. Listen, intercede, Family, and Encoutner( i think. i forget if encounter is right but i like it so i'll leave it until josh corrects me.)so this week was listen. granted it was monday, and i had already blogged monday then spent three hours praying and listening to God, so i was kind of in the mindset that i had "met my quota" for the day, but i was excited to see what was going on. i showed up and we did lectio divina on a verse in psalms ( i forget which one.) lectio divina is one of the oldest bible studying methods around. basically you read the verse slowly and listen to the words. you listen for a word or phrase that sticks out. then you read it again. then you think about the phrase. after that you pray about the phrase adn ask God what he wants to show you. then, you listen to him. after you share. i might have skipped a step or gotten something wrong, but once again until josh corrects me, i'll leave it as is.

my favorite part is that it forces us to listen. we spent fifteen minutes that felt like half an hour to me. as someone who likes to sit and listen to God for three hours a night, that fifteen minutes was long. part of what we did was not allow ourselves to respond for part of it. it made you really sit and listen to make sure ou had all of what God was saying. my mind always races. but i had to still it and lsiten. i loved it. it was awkward. it was perfect.

out of this day i got two main ideas. the first i will share is what God showed me through the listening part. it really played off what i wrote about that morning about spending more time alone with God.

Verse portions "i ponder every morsel of wisdom from you"
"i will not forget your word"
the first really spoke of spending time in thought and in prayer. pondering every morsel says we are to use our minds to think about the depths of God's words.
the part about not forgeting God's word made me think about knowing his word. i need to study the bible more. alot more.
talking to God makes us learn about who he is up close. the immanence. he is right here. we need to learn about who he is right next to us by simply interacting with him. we need to commune with God.
the part about studying his word is teaching us about his transcendance. it is rare that we feel his awesome power that is so far above us. by studying the word we know that he is HUGE. we know this part better by studing his word. there are places where he tells us how powerful he is. those are where we learn about his awesome size.

in the part of lectio divina where you respond and put that into ways that the ideas manifest themselves i broke it down into four steps that i can always be looking for in my life:
learn the facts, experience his love, love the world ( in a missional sort of way) and teach the word.

the other portion of the things God showed me i will have to share tomorrow. i am tired. i know God has called me to be a pastor. He has also called me to be a lover and an encourager. next week is intercede. i am so excited. its a dream come true for me. i have been praying that God will show us things to tell each other. that he will kep us up at night so we will listen to him and know how he wants to use us to encourage one another next monday. its going to be awesome.

bed time theology

in the more recent years of my life i have one week that stands out as the spiritual high point. the weird thing is that this happens to alot of people. most of the time it is camp, or a conference like "when God dreams" that the stirring put on(i didn't go, sadly. i had work) and thus they try as hard as they can to get back to that place. people come to alliance redwoods because they met christ there. don't get me wrong, the idea of a week away from your life to focus on God is a good idea. and the return business is good for me since i work there. but for me i have a dilema. see my spiritual high week was not camp. it was not some mega conference with some huge band leading worhsip and some critically aclaimed author as the key note speaker. it was not organized in any way. my week was chosen as that week because giving us easter break as a week long would make summer and spring breaks too close. the recent highpoint in my life was easter break.

God spoke to me. God speaks to us in lots of different ways. some times its through nature, or people or a song. sometimes he gives us certain feelings of compassion or restlessness. or rest. and sometimes its more clear. there are words invloved. you know how you can think the idea of a sentence, then think the words out in your head, then speak it? well for me God speaks the loudest in that middle stage.
any time he does this i feel like yelling it to the world. when he does this for me every night for a whole week, i yell it to the world multiple times.

over that week i found myself unable to sleep. i would hit the bed at midnight ( like i usually do) and not fall asleep. one o'clock would roll around and i would wonder why i was still awake. every night it seemed like God was sitting there waiting for me to figure it out. and so i would pray. i would ask God "what are you trying to show me."

it was one sentence that had so much behind it.lets skip the whole me complaining part, and the part where i tell you things you already know. i know you know, and simply by saying i'm listening i can feel the same comfort in your strength ( i just used the tylenol motto for God... )just what is up?

and he would answer.

he would put thoughts in my mind that got me going and i would respond in thought. when i got close to what he was telling me i would begin to smile and cry and laugh out loud. and i would begin to doubt. i would be on the verge of coming too some realization and think i understood and then i would remember "lean not on your own understanding" and i would freak out. and i wuld verbally ask Him to tell me what i needed to hear. to tell me i was right if i was right and that i was wrong if i was wrong. i didn't mind if it was rebuke or encouragement. i knew i needed to hear it from His mouth.
and for the entire week of late night prayer conversations he always told me " yes, thats what i am saying."
he would set the thought in my mind and let me wrestle with it. when i got scared of what i was thinking about he would encourage me. when i got close he would tell me to ask him what i was thinking. and when i asked he would respond. then i would smile realy big, begin to laugh in sheer joy, or cry in sheer thankfulness. i would thank him. he would tell me " Andrew, I love you. of course i'll tell you." and then repeat the thought he had set in motion back to me. it was not always in the same words, but it was always loud and clear. He reminded me one night it would not always be this clear, but also said i should search for it to be this clear. to always strive for more. but to notice the little hints. to respond to the little hints.

it came to a point where. by friday, i realized i wanted to get to bed. not that bed is the only place i hear God, or that he only exists right above my face when i am about to be asleep, but that it was a time when no one would barge in. where i could be alone with Him. so friday night i thought i wanted to spend more time talking. i noticed i was always asleep by three thirty in the morning, and i wanted more. so i went to bed earlier. and i stayed up until 445 that night. just talking with my creator. i woke up the next morning at the crack of noon and had breakfast.

see i am faced with this dilemma. because my place where i meet God has always been " tghe creek at camp" or "during Devotional time at summer camp." now its my bed. but i do not always meet God in bed. sometimes i go to sleep when i get in bed. or i can't sleep so i put in a movie. my dilemma is that i am finally at a place where direct conversation with God is easy. but now i forget. spring break was a spiritual high for me, and today i realized that i can get back there right now. i'm going to bed at midnight tonight. no later, maybe earlier. and i probably won't be up until noon the next day, cause i plan on talking to God tonight. (that is not to say i can't earlier. like right now. or like five minutes ago.) but i have finally found my quiet time with God. and when it's done, i can just fall asleep.

i am now at a point where i more fully grasp how simple it is for me to hear him.
and i am amazed by it. i have been told my whole life that i need to spend time with God, but now for some reason it makes more sense.

so here is something he has been showing me:

God is transcendent and immanent. transcendence means He is way up there watching over us. immanence means He is right here. if i focus on the transcendence i lose sight of the fact he is right here with me. i become a deist. if i focus only on the Immanence i lose track of His power. of his provision. of his omniscience, omnipotence, of his omnipresence.
instead if i focus on both, i find out more of who he is. if i focus on God's Immanence where he is right here, but i also remember his transcendance, where he is infinitely far away, any thing that wants to get to me has to go through an infinite amount of God to get to me. the only way to do that is if he lets it though to strengthen me.
if i focus on how far he is and how powerful he is, i have to look deep into him. he is right here. i open my eys and look he touches my pupil. he's CLOSE. get it? okay. so to focus on how high and "above it all" he is i have to look through all of that God-ness. its really pretty awe-inspiring. and comforting.

go in peace to love and serve the lord

enough isn't enough anymore.

a while agoi said enough was enough on guitar stuff for me, but now its not anymore. my amp is dead. i need a new one. sadly dan lance let me use his amp last night as mine died right before the service. and now i want one like his. it sounded so clean and beautiful. but the cheap version of the amp missing some of the pretty sound enhancing technology costs about $2000 dollars. yes, the cheap version. but then i realized i like dirty and beautiful more than i like clean and beautiful. in my amps. (not my women thank you.) so i want a Vox AC15. but i also still want that Top hat Club Royale. so now i want both. so if someone wants to give me three thousand dollars i would appreciate it. and a fulltone overdrive pedal to go with whatever amp i get.

fortunately a freind has a friend who can get me a deal on the vox. and another friend has a few friends who could get me a deal on the top hat.

oh. and i'm home now. i took a shower and the head of the shower was higher than my head. so awesome. stupid school showers.

junior?

yesterday was graduation. i saw some good people walk. and it was a happy time. i can say with all honesty of the six people i was sad to see leave, i was extremely happy to find out only two would not be in town next year. Matt giles is working with a youth group and living in anderson, Aaron holmes is doing something, and will still be here, Jenna Barney is working for the stirring and will be continueing to blees people by leading them into the pressence of God, and Ian brooks is coaching some sport and will still be playing bass at the stirring. sadly Eric wilkinson and Doug will be leaving us. i never had time to get really close to either of them (if one or both of you read this then know i am sorry for that) but i felt like they were both Guys well all loved. i know i wish i knew each of them better.

but as graduation was yesterday i realize, i am a junior. or i should be, but i might not have the credits. we'll see. but my second academic year at simpson is over. i am in my second half of schooling as of right now.
also as of 5 o'clock last night i am no longer a resident of third floor thompson mangham. next august i will be a Residency assistant on second floor Thompson, but i have spent two whole years on third floor. i hope to bring the third floor community feeling to second floor next year.

this summer i want to buy a new amp, but i need to make some money to do that.
this summer i need to make some money, but i need a job to do that.
this summer i need to get a job, but that takes away the time i was hoping to spend investing in friendships back home and focusing on my walk with God. i have decided to take this summer almost the way a pastor or teacher takes a sabatical. to have a time to focus inward on my issues and in doing so be able to focuw outward on the issues of others. as it is now my outward focus is a little blurry due to some issues internally. nothing too big, but still something i need God to fix in me.

i am looking forward to a summer of relaxation and hopefully working part time at camp. i am looking back and already missing people in redding. even though i am currently in redding and will be at the stirring tonight, i miss people that i think already left. and i don't know if they did. lame.

anyways, i think i successfully made this a semi sad end of the year blog with the proper amount of sadness and the right hint of future hope. okay. to those who left without finding me, good bye ( insert hug here) andi will see oyu next fall if not sooner. to those still in town, reading this before noon on monday, call me. i want to say bye.

andrew

to all conspiracy theorist ou there, i submit this evidence as artifact 1.




i rest my case.

new Blog! status update i guess.

so the blog world needs an update. or maybe i just need something to write in hopes that i get something good to write.

i'm home right now and i love it here.

i got some skinny jeans today. they are stretch jeans. i am a guy. you get what i'm saying right? ( and no i'm not saying that i bought girls jeans, just that levi's makes guys stretch jeans. weird)

lent is officially over so i can use myspace and facebook again. yay. and it turns out lent was over last sunday. holy week isn't lent. go catholicism. so i'm like five days late on facebook. oh well.

i miss people at school whenever i am at home.

i miss people at home whenever i am at school.

i miss my bed at home when i am at school.

so my amplifier is dying, but besides that i am finally content with my guitar equipment. people ask " when is enough going to be enough?" and i say enough is enough now. and will continue to be until my amp finally poops oout on me. then enough will be enough when i buy that new one.

i want to climb. not an update, i always want to climb.

i am playing at church on sunday at 530 am sunrise service!

i will be tired on monday.

i am being counter productive tomorrow and sleeping in late so my internal clock is set late so easter will feel earlier. bad choice, but it's worth it.

so nothing good to write yet.

Oh! so remember the whole dryspell thing? well God gave me something to say to someone. at the end of the good friday service. so my dryspell ended with the end of lent. cool symbolism. or coincidence. either way its cool.

okay, goodbye until later.

INSANE!

so my life has been crazy. i have not heard God speak as stronly as i heard him speak when i was at home, ever before in my life. now, back at school for a few days, God has not spoken to me in that way. i was telling a friend of mine about this last night and as i was saying it, i realized there is a reason. see we do the whole season of lent because we need to realize that sometimes we have dry spells and sometimes it rains spiritually in our lives. in the rain we are soaked in God's love and feel it strongly. if all we had was rain, we would stop enjoying it. we have dry spells so that when the rain comes we don't run and hide our heads as the beetles sang, but instead we soak it in. we bask in every moment that we have. as i was telling this friend about how i hadn't experienced anything mind blowing in half a week i realized this is a mini dry season for me. God gave me this spiritual gift of encouragement. he told me it was for life. and then he used me for it quite a bit. he told me to talk to my dad about how god was proud of him. the chance to do that for my dad was amazing. right now i am finally starting the real feeling you are supposed to get during lent. to remember the rainy season through the dry spell and to strive for the rain so that when it comes we can passionately enjoy it. when you look at it, the israelites who hoarded the manna had the right attitude, just about the wrong aspect of their life. God told them to take a days worth and they got greedy. i think in the rainy seasons we needs to hoard the rain. to try to soak in as much as we can. he says he will alwyas provide for us and he does in the physcal sense, so we should share our things and only take what we need. in the spiritual we should gather so much it spills on those around us.

the other thing that God told me last week about my dad was to tell him " well done my good and faithful servant. i godsipped my mom, so now its dad's turn. God has been showing my brother, one of the pastors back home some amazing direction to take the young adults group as a way to set and example for the church. and my dad has had to balance letting his son who was given a vision from God lead, and supporting his son, with the fun task of making it known it is not him showing his son favoritism. so God told me to tell my dad well done for Him. the thing is when God told me " andrew you are a man after my own heart" ( amazing moment, by the way, but thats a whole other blog)i felt that it was the " not dead" version of " well done my good and faithful servant." so telling my dad the line i had kind of seen as a heaven only ting, scared me. i could not shake the feeling my dad was going to die in his desk as i sat there in the little chair and told him well Done my good and faithful servant for God. i could see him hearing the sentence start in my voice and end in God's voice because my dad was dead. and this image was very real and very scary. so i didn;t want to tell my dad this. but i knew God had told me to. so i told God i would. i said " you're will be done" and thought and prayed that it would be and abraham sacrificing Isaac thing (with the generational roles reversed) but i sincerely thought my dad might die. the next day i was talking to my dad, and i knew it was time to say it. i had told him all the things i had to say, but the one. so i started to speak, and i got choked up. but i wasn't about to cry. in that moment i felt God setting a thought process in motion. and i felt a peace and a joy return to me. so i told my dad the bit of encouragement i had to say, and we talked some more. he's still alive. i have the gift of encouragement, not prophecy. lucky me, cause my dad would be dead.

so last night i was talking to my friend and i told her about all that and as i was saying it the thought God started in me came to fruition. i realized that God was preparing me. see my spiritual gift of encouragement was set aside for me for life. not that i will always be used in thins, but that it will never be off my mind. god made me choose to obey him or to keep the thing most dear to me at that moment. and that is my Dad. he told me that now i knew what i meant to be willing to offer up everything i had to follow Him. and there will be times when i will be scared to go tell people the words God has given me to say, but i will always be able to remember that i chose to speak words that might lead directly to the death of my father( in my mind) because God told me to. after handling this while i figured out what my spiritual gift was, now that i know, nothing i will have to risk to say God's words to someone will be strong enough to stop me.

Go with peace to love and serve the Lord.

accomplishments

i finally did something! for the first time since break started i feel productive!

God has been showing me so much lately. he as been talking to me every night as i fall asleep. or rather whenever i think i will, he keeps me up for an hour talking to me. the weird thing is that lately i have been talking back. whether in my head or in a whisper, it has been more of conversational talk than your typical " dearest Lord. please help" i have finally come to the point where i can easily talk with God like i talk to my father. still respectfully and loving. but at the same time, i have become comfortable. i can joke around with God. and at first i felt mildly hypocritical, and heretical for using sarcasm with God. see, cause sarcasm gets us in trouble. i say "well i realized my foot was caught in a meat grinder, and that's just SO comfortable." you know i am kidding. but some things are less clearly communicated. last night God told me its okay, cause he knows every thing. and so you cannot miscommunicate with God. he knows what you mean. if you earnestly say something to God out of love and respect with some playful sarcasm, you have nothing to worry about, cause he knows you are kidding. cause he knows everything.

its weird, but thats what i've been realizing. if God made me witty ( which is a way better word than sarcastic) then to not use my wit would be to not use something he gave me. it would be denying who i am, and thats not good. also, if God made me witty then seeing as i am created in God's image, there must be some part of God that is witty as well.

but i do have to keep my wittiness in check. don't worry, i know that much.

*Corralary: do not use that to have a sassy tone with God. you'll notice i said loving and respectful. i could also have said reverent attitude. so don't go saying things like " i love you God" with a sarcastic attitude. that's called mocking God. also known as "not a good idea" he made the earth, and designed hell, so he has alot of power.

well thats all for now. i might go write more later. we'll see.
go in peace to love and serve the lord.

scatter brained thursday

it happens almost every week. Thursdays are the worst day of the week for me. i am partially unable to focus. i had homework to do today, and i was kinda bummed, but i have postponed it all week. then i found out the assignment i was going to do tomorrow isn't due for another week, so i get to move todays paper to tomorrow. and so i have spent today in the most unproductive ways possible.

i have cleaned my new blues-brother's glasses twice.
i have put a lacrosse ball in my climbing shoes to stretch the heels out to fit me better.
i took a shower just now. i showered last night before i went to bed, and probably will again tonight.
i ran out to my car to get my ipod. half way there i realized my keys were in my room, so i ran to the door to see if i was locked out of the house. i wasn't, so i turned around and went all the way to my car. checked the door, which i know i locked, and it has an aouto locking feature, but i still checked. then i went and checked the mail. then went back in, grabbed my keys, went to my car, got out my ipod, and checked the mail... again. got back to my room, i left my ipod cable at school. so worth the five minutes.

i then went online and looked at prices for a custom printed black leather slap bracelet. i can get one for 47 cents, if i order 499 more at the same price. anyone want 499 black slap bracelets with the words " i miss my elementary school" written on them?

then i texted some people about the fact that i should be in santa cruz hanging out with them. but i'm not.

so i decided to write a blog, about how bored i am.

i think i'll go play guitar.
okay, until later, bye world-wide-web-world.

oh, and i'm listening to "Fiction family". go check them out. jon foreman of switchfoot, the guitarist from nickel creek. acoustic/folk album. amazing

25 bits of random

25 random facts. in the order i think of them
1.i like cheese. preferably cheddar. medium sharp. from safeway actually.
2.i can balance a sharpie on its tip on my finger. i once went for a minute. my physics teacher said i was a physical anomaly.
3.i weighed 167.5 pounds when i woke up. i ate four waffles, and drank a glass of milk. now i weigh 166. apparently my waffles weigh -1.5 pounds.
4. i'm going to be an RA next year, and my initials ar AR. i want my name tag to just say R.A.A.R. so it reads "RAAR!" and it should be dinosaur shaped.
5.i climb rocks and every stone chimney i have seen in the past few years has turned into a climbing problem in my mind. i guess you could say i have a climbing problem
6.i love puns
7.i suck at making puns.
8.but i still try
9.i love making list blogs.
10.earliest memory=january 1st 1990. i dropped a sparkler on my foot. i was wearing slippers ( AKA flip flops for you non- hawaiians) and i dropped it on my right foot. i still have the scar.
11.i once was stepped on by a guy with an ice skate
12.i was born in hawaii. ( this one took the polace of another one, because i decided not to share that. its not so much me, but about others. so meh. and everyone knows i'm from hawaii anyways. but its still cool)
13.i have a 10.5 inch foot, and 10 inch climbing shoes.
14.i still have a teddy bear from when i was one. his name is teddy. he's ina box in the garage.
15.i have only ever shot two guns, and one of them is 100 years old
16.i love sushi
17.i think leggings over certain sizes should definitely be treated like tights, and be required to have shorts or a skirt worn over them. actually, make that all sizes.
18.i used to count my steps. i had OCD as a child.
19.i had ADD as a child. it was a weird combo
20.now that i'm 20 i use the term " teenager" as a borderline derogatory term.
21.next year i turn 21 along with two other friends of mine on the same day. we are all RA's, and thus we will not be getting drunk. not until break, when its allowed
22.when driving to church, i carry more money in guitar stuff in my car than my car is worth itself.
23.i own five nalgene bottles, a camel back bottle, three hydration bladders and a SIGG aluminum bottle. i like to over hydrate.
24.my sister is cooler than yours. my brother is cooler than yours, and my sister in law is also cooler than yours. (for other things i have cooler than yours, see also,"parents")
25.i have flipped a quad. ( fun story, not fun experience)

the down side of wanting to be a pastor

so here it is. others will probably disagree, but here goes:
when you are single, and studying to be a pastor, you can't date anyone. you have to not only find a girl you like, who likes you back, and whose personality matches yours, but one who is either called, or ready to be called to ministry just as much as you are. if not more.

this might be a weird intro, but this blog is about how awesome my mom is.

extremely

i could end it there, but i won't
see, my mom was raised by my grandma, who was a single mother. she rose above that. her whole life she told herself she would be better than her circumstance. she wanted to marry a good man, and so she knew she had to be a good woman after God's own heart. when i read proverbs 31 ( the second half) i think of my mom, and then compare other women to that standard. i talk alot about my dad being a pastor, and about how it sucks being his kid sometimes because the life of a PK is lived under a microscope. but really, with a mom like mine, its not too bad. i was talking with my dad yesterday thanking him for doing such a good job raising us and balancing work with home. he was always able to make us feel more important than the church. he said that if it weren't for my mom he would never have been able to do it.

my mom did not get a degree in theology or biblical studies.
my mom did not go to college.
(my mom did get a degree as a registered dental assistant, but thats not the point)

she never uses tha as an excuse. some would say i just pointed out one of my mom's flaws, but thats not a flaw. my mother does not always know how to explain things using Barthian theology or big words like Eschatology, but she has an intuition. and thus she does not rely on her own understanding, but in all her ways acknowledges God. ( side note, i do not agree with alot that i have read of Barth, but he was the first theologian i thought of)
see, my mom has the gift of discernment. God gives her an instinct in a lot of situations that turns out for the best. in some of the toughest times in my life she has known that i needed help without me saying anything. she is always there for me and my siblings, always loving to my dad, and always loving God.

and she's the best cook ever.


to my mom: thank you so much, i love you.
if anyone knows a girl like my mom, tell me, so i can marry that woman. :)