The Broken Radio Paradigm Part 3 (Not really)

Due to being away from my laptop all weekend and then having to suddenly go into work today I have had no time to type. I also work a ton the next few days but will try and type stuff as soon as possible. this is my formal apology for not having finished this story days ago as initially intended and also official oath that my task of finishing my story will be completed as soon as I get more than ten minutes of free time.

The Broken Radio Paradigm Part 2

Looks like this will most definitely be split in three parts. Possibly even four. For now you have the events of my Saturday to entertain and enthrall you... or bore you to tears.... whichever floats your goat.

Part 2

Where were we?.. Oh yes. I had finished up with Friday as being everything Rebecca Black promised it would be. On to Saturday now.

That night the youth had decided to start the movie Inception up at around 1:00 at night so Saturday morning no one wanted to wake, But awake we did as we had to leave the house we were staying at around 10:30am. In my car I had to actually drive youth this time which wasn't too bad but nonetheless uncomfortable. We got to the venue and it was already packed. I split from my group ASAP so I could go see Aaron Gillespie play his solo act. This, by the way, was amazing. Not only was he playing his solo act, but his current band The Almost was scheduled to play later, and his former band UnderOath was there as well. For those who are die-hard Almost fans this concert represented a huge event in music. While underoath were playing Aaron was visibly standing back-stage and I honestly thought he would join his old band for a few tunes, but alas he did not. For those who don't know why I love Gillespie I will post a link to a video he has called True meaning of being a Christian. All three Gillespie related groups were fantastic, but Gungor stole the show. If you don't know who Gungor is then seriously go look them up right now as they are a fantastic praise and worship band from Denver itself that also delves into some amazing ambiance and folk type stuff. They played with a Glockenspiel and a Cello which added so much to their live sound. 

Switchfoot was the headliner. I have been a fan since their sophomore release (two albums before anyone else even knew they existed). I have seen them before and was just as impressed with their new live show as I was three years ago. Despite many of their songs being much to mainstream for my taste their first three Indie records and their most recent two indie records should have a definite place on ones shelf of amazing rock music. 

I also go to see my long lost brother as he resides in Fort Collins currently so that was another plus to this weekend. I honestly could write show reviews for several of the acts of the concert, and could write album review for most of the act's entire discographies but I have found that most people get irked when I ramble about my love for music too much so I will simply end with saying that most of the acts seen at Heavenfest were quite superb.

After it ended we returned to the house and immediately the high-school guys and girls decided to, for lack of better term, "hit on" each other as loud as possible, but I came armed for battle this time. My brother has this weird knack for always having packs of ear plugs with him wherever and whenever, so I got a pair before he left the concert to go home. So with silence in my ears, joy in my life from the past two days, and hope in my soul for the next day I fell asleep.

The Broken Radio Paradigm Part 1

-NOTE: This was only part 1 of this post. I will hopefully be posting part 2 either tomorrow or the next day. Depending on how my writing process goes there might even be part 3 but we will see. I would have just written this all in one piece but this post is a lot bigger than just my road trip and just the sheer length of such a post seemed to ginormous to be climbed in one sitting. Also the story takes a rather drastic shift in tone and writing style and I figured it would be easier on both me and my readers (I like to pretend they are numerous) if I split it up into parts.  

Road Trip

Ah. Summertime... The time of heat, trees, bees, and large outdoor music festivals. At least that's what the last few month have consisted of for me.

Although I have been out of the "youth group" age for some time now I still accompany my church's youth on many a journey. Part of this is under the guise of being a "helper" but the truth is that I genuinely enjoy going on most of these trips. We had already been to "Night Vision Festival" earlier in the summer and that was all good fun. So even though "Heavenfest" was only two weeks later I was determined to get the days off work to go. 

The plan was set and I was to drive half of the boys in my car while my youth pastor would take the other half in his, with my mother driving the girls. Then all of the sudden one of the youth canceled so I would be driving myself. Once my father stumbled upon this knowledge he decided I should take a bicycle up to my brother in Fort Collins since I had an empty car. Almost all of these changes happened the day before I was to leave so it was nice to try and rearrange my entire travel plan last minute. However, I was determined to still make this an awesome trip regardless of how sporadic these changes had been. So I contacted a childhood friend who lived in the Denver Metro area to see if I could possibly meet up with her and her family on my way up. She said it would be fine, so once again my plans were slightly altered. Everything was set and packed so I left early Friday morning full of anticipation for the upcoming weekend. Little did I know it would be quite a bit different than expected. (that last sentence sounds much more dramatic than it should, but doesn't the world need more drama?)

I was driving in a 90's Buick LeSaber that had no AC, no radio, and no CD player. Also my iPod had recently passed away so I was forced to used a small SD card to listen to music through my phone. Even though I had put 8 GB worth of music on this card, only one album was actually playing and it was Dance or Die by Family Force 5. Now I am not one to be hating on the Family but I can't sanely take 6 hours of them repeating over and over, but I had no other option so I killed brain cells one by one for the 348 miles. Not to worry though as the trip was about to take a change for the better. 

When I got to my old childhood friends house I was quite nervous for multiple reasons. Firstly I wasn't entirely certain on the address as there are about three streets in the surrounding area with almost identical names and I didn't fancy having to knock on an incorrect door as that leads to awkward social interactions and unnecessary hot beverages. Nevertheless once I pulled up to what I thought was the right address I summoned my courage and walked towards the door. 

It was the second I first rang the door bell that I encountered my second fear that I hadn't even thought about until that instant. What if this family can't stand me? I had only reconnected with members of this family less than a year ago and even that was just through facebook. I have found over the years that getting along with people over facebook and getting along in real life can be two different thing. Shortly after entering the house it was clear that the reasoning for this fear had absolutely no basis. It was like slipping through the space-time wormhole encountered in Enterprise season 2. It was as though no time had passed and I was back at their house with my childhood best friend.This family was leaps and bounds more awesome than any group of people I had met in a long time and it was refreshing to be around people than were equally as nerdy as I am. Seconds turned to minutes, which in turn became hours and soon I found my phone bursting with angry text messages from my brother wondering why I hadn't been at his house hours ago, but I honestly didn't care. Eventually a great night of catching up, and singing about how we hate the homeless...... ness problem had to come to an end as my mother was convinced that I was hours behind the rest of my youth group (which were now in Fort Collins even though they left about 6 hours after I did).

I caught up to the rest of my group within only a few minutes and all was good. Thus ended a great day and perfect prelude of the awesomeness to come....

Blog time

I am not here to make excuses for why I never post on this as regularly as I originality claimed. I have come to realize that this blog is more for my own benefit as a place to store memories and thoughts and, on rare occasion when I get the nerve, to post these writing. I have many posts I have written this summer but most will forever remain for my eyes only. I used to go back and try to polish and change them enough so I would feel okay posting them but eventually I realized that I was becoming a slave to the one thing I had started as a way to relieve slavery (that is to say slavery to my own thoughts). I will still post stuff for readers as I will in about 20 second from when I post this one, but I will not promise weekly or even monthly postings in the future. This blog is for me much more than for others. If there comes a time when I do get the urge to post more frequently it will be because I wish it. No more looming guilty thoughts of "Bennie, you haven't posted in your blog for about two months... you suck!". Not that anyone really has complained, or ever cares, but by posting this I am freeing myself of blog-guilt.

Live Long and Prosper,
Bennie Renfro

I love Harry Potter more than J.K. Rowling

Do you remember that time Bennie convinced himself that he would write once a week on this blog? Well that never happened. I have a couple of posts I am still working on, but between work, sleep, and being awesome 24/7 I never seem to work on finishing them. The only reason I am writing right now and not off destroying walls of prejudice is that I just now realized I have yet to write a post about Harry Potter. So here goes....

Most people reading this are probably wondering why I need to devote an entire post to HP, but very few people actually know how much my life tends to hinge on this series. 

When I was much younger my mother had forbade me from reading the Potter books as they were "satanic". Apparently she had read some article about Rowling's supposed real-life witchcraft that inspired her novels. Let me state up front that any such account is false. J.K. Rowling has stated on multiple occasions that she does not, and never has, believed in magic. She HAS stated that she believes in God. Any tabloid that says otherwise is plainly false. Anywho, around my sixth grade year she told me I was free to read whatever I wanted as she firmly believed I was old enough to form thoughts and opinions on my own apparently. I actually read in a jumbled order my first time as my school library had only books 3 and 4 on the shelf. Now I don't want to brag, but  I finished book three and four within two days as I had absoliutely no life back then apart from reading. Side note: I actually still held the school record for reading three years after I left midschool; it may still hold but I am far to lazy to go check at this point.... The main point of all this was to simply explain that from the first moment I started reading the books I was in love. This was not fleeting teenage crush. No, this was something much deeper and heartfelt.

Shortly after I started the series the 5th book came out so it was not a long wait at all. I think this is why I never made a huge deal out of the release. However when HBP came out it was a much different story. At this time in my life I had many "friends", but none that I would "hang" with on a consistent basis. Due to this I spent most of my summer days at home. My sister was always too polite and quite to bother me much, but my older brother liked to make it his life goal to ruin mine. This was no cute sibling rivalry; so get nice pictures of joyful teasing out of your mind. My brother emotionally and mentally manipulated and abused me simply for the sheer knowledge that he could. I hold none of this against him now, and I don't even think he knows how bad he was, but my parents and sister were witnesses to this. Due to this abuse I would usually stay locked away in my room reading. I could relate to Harry in this way as his summer months were usually spent in similar ways. Harry had a few things up on me though. 

First, and most obviously, he had friends at school who deeply cared for him. Even though I had "friends" that I would occasionally joke around with, I never really had true friends when I was younger and even up into parts of high school. The people I considered my friends would usually let me eat lunch with them, but when they would go do what normal kids do after school (have fun) I was never invited. So even during the school year I really just had my books. 

Harry also excelled at various things. These included quiddich, Defence against the Dark Arts, coming up with witty retorts to bullying, and having courage to stand for what's right. I did cross-country and track, but was almost always last. I was so bad at music that I was the first student ever not to be allowed to march in Bayfield. Whenever someone was mean to me I always ended up looking the less intelligent at word-play. And my faith was very far from being my own. 

At this point I realize this sounds much like a whiny sob-story, but it is about to turn around.

After reading the final HP book something clicked in my brain. I finally realized the point of it all. I finally figured what made Harry such a likable character, and it was just that: his character. Though far from perfect Harry exemplifies what it truly means to fight for what is right. To hold love, honor, and equality above ones own selfish agenda. I  could go on for hours about how the inner/overarcing themes of HP are the perfect example of altruism, but for your sake I wont. I finally realized how petty I am, and how much of a waste of a life I had been. It revolutionized my way of thinking. Not overnight mind you. This process has been long and still may never be completely finished, but it was the Harry Potter series that helped me start. It was this series that made me strive for perfection in music, which after only eight months of playing drums I was not only marching with the band, but I was drumline captain. By another four months I was outplaying the top drumset player who had been drumming for close to seven years. I say none of this to brag, but only to make an example of what determination can do. Also for the record my mile time is close to two whole minutes faster than when I last did track.

I have the HP audiobooks and now have listened trough the series close to twenty times (no joke). I have also ready through the series 8 times. I listen to these books at work, in the car, at home during Christmas, and virtually anywhere I can. I am so emotionally tied to this series that every time I finish book seven's epilogue I go on the verge of tears for about two days straight. I become so emotionally impassioned that I have twice now packed up all that I own in an attempt to simply just leave my town right then and go devote my life to doing good and bringing down evil wizards. 

I know there was little point to this post and the thoughts are very scattered, but it was about time I wrote about this. Also I had been meaning to write on this blog for a few weeks and this just seemed like the easiest topic to write on as my other works (aka. my written testimony) have just been to mentally difficult and draining to write, as that post I am trying to make perfect. If you haven't read the series then please do as it is amazing beyond proper explanation  I hope you enjoyed my rant on Harry Potter. If you did not enjoy it then I apologize for wasting your time... Actually that was a lie. It's your own dang fault for reading this.

Live Long and Prosper,

Benjamin Renfro

Working as a professional geek.

It has been quite a while since my last entry and it really has just been due to laziness on my part. I have typed up many entries for this blog but have just simply been too lazy to edit and post them. I ended my first full year of higher education about five weeks ago and immediately after that I took a trip. My trip, though overdue, was kept short because my job had told me to "be back by Tuesday". Well long story short I didn't actually work until Thursday... Two and a half weeks later. If I had known this while on my trip I could have done so much more with my free time. Instead I spent my time watching TOS of Star Trek and perfecting my game at table tennis. As I had gotten out of school weeks before any of my friends, in either college or HS, I quite literally had nothing to do. I wrote another entry about my two weeks of boredom, but this will most likely get posted first. 

Anywho, I finally started work for my company after two weeks. First off I should give some back-story/explanation as to what it is that I do. Summer after my Senior year of HS I started this job as it payed extremely well for the amount of effort the employee must put in. My technical position is that I hold a stop/slow paddle for a control safety company in road construction. Even though this is what I was initially hired for last summer, I had told the company up front that I was only working for three months until school started. Because of this I got to go and do special projects and travel around the state for free. This was all fine and dandy as I love getting paid good money to simply drive to a project, on company dime, and then return the next day. I had no permanent project last summer and I liked it that way. 

This summer, however, was a different story. Due to the economy my company had laid off about half of their employees during the winter. Because I had been such an exemplary worker last summer they were still eager to hire me back on. I should explain that most of their employees were ex-cons and other such types to the point where I, who am nothing too special, was considered a diamond of a find as far as my company was concerned... getting back on track now. I was hired back on but didn't work for two weeks straight. 

Once I had work they put me permanently on a project. I like mixing it up as much as possible so being stuck on the same road for three months didn't sound very appealing to me, but nonetheless I trudged on. I was situated on the south side of the project right around a corner so none of the other workers could see me. The road was also pretty scarce as far as vehicular numberage goes. This was great because I listen to my iPod all day on the job and like to punch-dance my rage as much as possible. Aside from music I also have every Harry Potter book on tape and enjoy acting out scenes as they are read to me. 

Now at this point you must be thinking, "This job sounds like an absolute delight", but trust me it isn't all peaches and unicorn fluff. I have to leave my house at 5:30 am to get to work, and I return around 8:30. I literally got home, ate dinner, made my lunch for the next day, and then went to sleep so it could all repeat. The only day off I got was Sunday and I usually just went to church and then slept the rest of the day. The hours were plenty, but at some point 60 hour weeks are just too much. Plus being in the sun literally from dawn till dusk is EXTREMELY draining. 

Back to the plot at hand. I love my Harry Potter time dearly and getting to scare passing cars by shooting stunning spells is always fun. I will confess that I am truly in love with the HP series. I read through the entire series at least once a year, and listen through it about three times a year. Over all I would guess I have gone through all seven books about 20 times in my life and can quote a good portion of most the books by heart. As far as getting to listen to the tales and woes of Harry, Ron, and Hermione,  I do love that part of the job. Unfortunately there is no amount of Firebolts or Nimbus 2000s that can keep me content when it gets around 5:00 in the afternoon and I am just dead tired. So at that point I just try to stay awake by having enormous amounts of fun. Here is a list of things I would do to entertain myself.

-Shout "'ello Govna" to passing cars.

-Pretend to be a dinosaur.

-Engage in long conversations about the differences between river and sea otters with the front car in my stopped pack. (This one rarely went well).

-See how many times I could flip my walky-talky without dropping it. Record: 482 flips

-Whenever I would talk on the radio I would strain my voice in different ways to convey opposing messages. I.e. I would say "received and sending" as though I were an Australasian man who was very anxious about an unforeseen doom.

-When cars were stopped I would just stare at them and softly sing the Poke'mon theme music.

-Make approaching cars think I was a very talented tap-dancer. Note: I am NOT a tap-dancer.

... As time, and days, wore on my stunts grew increasingly strange and absurd. Luckily no one reported me to the supervisor. Although as a non-smoking, non-alcoholic flagger I don't think they would have been mad at all considering that, unlike my other flaggers, I don't show up to work drunk.

During my two weeks of boredom I had started to apply at other places as a last-ditch effort. about three weeks after I finally got work with my traffic job I ended it with the company on very good terms. I now work a simply perfect job at a tee-shirt shop on Main St. were I get to sell people tee-shirts while impersonating a British person. I always try to make the most fun out of everything I do, which usually lands me with almost everyone thinking I am very strange indeed... Oh well, that's life I guess.

Live long, and Prosper,

Benjamin Renfro.

How I spend rainy Mondays

So due to both bad weather and yet another day without hearing from my job about work I found myself in my kitchen experimenting with food. I decided to fix pancakes. Keep in mind I was not intent on "making" pancakes so much as "fixing" the whole idea of pancakes. I tried small pans, large pans, different consistencies of batter, different temperatures, different cook times, and finally experimenting with using different foods as filling in some of the abnormally large pancakes. After much conclusive research I have finally perfected the ultimate food, and because it is so different from the so-called "pancakes" you mere mortals are used to, I have decided to call my creation "(insert insanely awesome food name here)".

1.)You get a 3 inch diameter, 1 inch deep pan and fill it to the brim with pancake batter.

It will rise to about an inch above the edge of the pan so be very careful. Eventually you will have a reasonably hard shell on the bottom and on the sides of the "pancake" with the center still being liquid. You will want to have the stove on very low heat so it may take some time to reach this bowl-like state. The overall shape will looked almost like a ball so don't be discouraged if what you are making looks nothing like a pancake.

2.) Insert 3-5 Double Stuff Oreos into the liquid center and push them down into the cake until there are no visible corners left.

Once cooked these Oreos will be very soft and warm because they absorb some of the still-liquid pancake batter.

3.) Flip the spherical monstrosity so the other side can cook.

You might be thinking to yourself, "This guy is insane! You cannot flip this thing because it is still half liquid". Your complains, while well reasoned, are invalid. There is no easy way to do the flipping, but after flipping two in a row without a mess I can proudly say that it is possible.

4.) Continue to cook at extremely low heat for as long as possible without burning. Remove when done.

The lower the heat the better. Because the cake should be almost a sphere it is very hard to cook thoroughly. Surprisingly adding Oreos helps the heat spread to the middle. There is no foolproof way to tell when the middle it done. the great wisdom I have as a cook helps me determine when it is ready, but obviously not everyone can be as gifted as I am at cooking. (That last bit was intended as sarcasm)

5.) Eat your new favorite meal and then never admit to anyone that you actually enjoyed this revolting sounding dish.

Note: After eating this you will most likely get extremely bored, watch a few lonely hours of Doogie Howser MD., and then feel the sudden need to post about this dish on your blog... or at least that's what happened when I ate it...

... dang I hate being home alone on days too rainy to go outside...

Road trip!

So it somewhat new for me to try and write a narrative of an event and even stranger for it to be on an Ex post facto basis so be patient. I will try not to ramble to much but seeing as rambling it my forte it will inevitably happen.

So after a full year at Fort Lewis College I was in desperate need of anything that wasn't just sitting on my couch and watching Wrath of Khan over and over; so I decided to plan a road trip. I had a friend whom I had grown up with since about sixth grade on, and she is one of my best friends in the entire world. For a long time she had been telling me to come and visit her at her college in Idaho but I just never had the time, willpower, or money to make the trip. After doing my taxes for this year I found I had about 500 dollars more than I thought I would have so I thought, "Hey, I can take a trip!" So after a couple of failed attempts to find other people to go on a trip with me I eventually decided to do this trip Han style: Solo. I already had a job lined up for the summer that was to start the Thursday after I finished finals, but after talking to the owner of the company he told me it was fine to just start a week later. So with all things somewhat in place I left my home literally the day after finals.

I had googled the route and printed directions, fixed various problems with my '86 Honda Prelude, and had packed all that I needed to survive for a few days in a tiny bag (yea that's right; I know how to roadtrip). I had planned on leaving at some crazy time like 4:30 in the morning like I usually do for trips but I didn't take into account that when it is just me on a trip there is little motivation to leave earlier than 7:00. The first couple hours of the trip were uneventful besides some amazing scenery God had made. Around 1:30 I started to realize how incredibly lonely and boring driving 13 hours by yourself can be, and honestly I was stating to doze off. So I stopped for my very first gas break, my car has amazing MPG, at a Subway/Gas station hybrid and had lunch. Before leaving I went against my better judgement and bought my very first Monster energy drink. Those who know me have learned that I have bad reactions to caffeine because of how ridiculously skinny I am, and because of this I very rarely eat sweets or drink coffee and I never do energy drinks of any kind. However, this trip was demanding an immediate intervention so I partook of my very first energy drink. At first it didn't really do much besides help me from being drowsy, but after a few more sips of the revolting concoction I was quite out of my mind. At this point in the trip I was going through the very mountainous roads in Utah, and even though it was a shear drop on one side it was still two lanes for both directions. My car is relatively fast and mountain passes don't bother her one bit so I was flying by all the other slowpokes that were way under the posted speed. Due to my caffeine altered state I was blasting heavy screamo music like Emery and Underoath. On top of me destroying my vocal chords trying to "sing" along to the music I also would yell "Huzzah!" out the window every time I passed someone and I would tip my can of sugary death towards them as one would lift their glass in Victorian Era England. Thankfully the drink wore off by the time I got to Boise and I was almost my normal self again.

I arrived around 8:15 and so since the night was young my friend and some of her fellow students took me downtown to see the city. Even though I live in a small town that is very removed from an large cities I have been to quite a few big city, and Boise was one of the most beautiful. It is not near the size of NYC or LA, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in awesomeness. Despite my small town upbringing I felt quite at home in Boise, which for me is strange because I don't always even feel at home when I am in my home. We visited a frozen yogurt shop and I was extremely surprised to find out it was headquartered in Durango, Colorado. I crashed on the floor of one of my friend's friend's floors. BBC only has about 200 students so I got to meet almost everyone. All the people were so nice and after a year at an extreme liberal arts college it was so great to be around so many good Christian brothers and sisters. Also everyone there loves Star Wars and even a few student are Roddenberry fans.

On the second day we started off the morning by driving around looking for homeless people; and when we found them we gave them sandwiches and bottled water, and then just talked with them for a while. This was such an amazing opportunity to show God's love, and for me it was very neat because there are not any homeless people in Bayfield so I don't have that kind of opportunity all of the time. After that we went to the Boise rescue mission and got to do some work at one of their women and children shelters for a couple of hours. This was so extremely cool because I want to work for an intercity mission someday so it was great to be a part of the work they do there, even if it was only for a few hours. Of course there are about 20 or so different mission-type jobs that I want to do at some point, but if they all fit in with God's plan for my life then I will not put a limit on how much he can do through me. Next we went to an African church service. Keep in mind this was not African American but actual African. Some were refugees and others move here just to be missionaries here in America. How strange that we send missionaries to their countries while they send missionaries to our's? This church service was one of the most amazing things I have ever been a part of. Everything from their music to their prayers were ten times more energetic than how we Americans worship. Every single visitor was called up so the congregation could pray for them. As I was a visitor I had to go up and be prayed for. At first it was a little strange, but then I realized this is exactly the kind of thing the original church probably did. Also at the beginning of the service the pastor told everyone to go and shake everyone's hand and introduce yourself. I have been to many different churches and almost all of them have a pastor that says this, but this pastor was for real. Literally the service did not resume until everyone had met EVERY other person. After this me and a group of BBC student went to Buffalo Wild Wings. This was a bad decision as I am a huge daredevil when it comes to hot foods. I ended up close to tears the entire way back to the college because of how many of the extremely hot wings I had eaten. That night we visited Table Rock which is this gigantic lit-up cross that shines above the whole city. Getting to look down on Boise at night from the mountains above it was simply breathtaking and really makes me want to live there.

The third day was Sunday so I went to my friend's church that morning. The membership of the church was over twice the population of my town so overall the worship service was amazing. The sermon was on Acts and how there are so many unsung heroes related to Saul/Paul's conversion that most people look over. Despite the less than explosionary topic I was close to tears by the end of the service. I love my church and my pastor so very very much but it is always amazing to visit different church's services and experiencing God in a different setting than I am used to. The rest of the afternoon nothing too extraordinary happened but I did get to go on a wonderful walk by the river that runs through the city. On a side note I also watched Jurassic Park which helped remind me how awesome dinosaurs are.That night we drove out to a huge lake and watched the water for a while. God's creation is so amazing yet I find myself not even noticing it most of the time. We truly have a beautiful planet.

My friend wanted me to stay another day but I needed to be home for my job so I left Monday morning. I had originally planned to drive back through Denver and visit my brother and some friends there but it turns out Denver is quite a bit out of the way so I guess that will have to be another trip at a different time, which is a bummer because my brother isn't coming home at all this summer because of an internship with AMD that will keep him up there the entire break.

When I left Boise it was slightly raining which was perfect because I love driving through weather as long as it isn't apocalypse level. I got into Utah and was cruising down the interstate with no visible building or town for as far as the eye could see when all of the sudden my tachometer started revving way too high. So I took my car off autopilot (cruise control but I like to pretend my car is a spaceship) and tried to use my accelerator manually, but even then all it did was rev as though it were in neutral. In the past my car has had transmission problems but we had that completely replaced. Fearing that I would be stranded and have to die alone in the middle of Utah I started calling my parent to let them know I was having car trouble. Because the car was acting as though it were in neutral it coasted for many miles before slowing down because it had a huge tailwind that was helping it. When it got down to about 35 MPH the gears kicked in again so I kept driving on the shoulder at that speed. I tried to speed up but as soon as the transmission kicked into 4th gear it revved out again until I got slow enough for it to slump into 3rd. (Note: normally you should put your hazard lights on when you drive that slow but my friend broke the button for them years ago so I just alternated left and right turns signals.) Eventually  after a while of driving like this I got brave and decided to see if I could push it into 4th gear. For some reason this time it worked perfectly. I had no other trouble from then on, and all of that can only be attributed to God watching over me during the entire time.

Thank you to all who were praying for my safe travels. Even though I only spent a few days on this trip I feel like a very changed person because of it. For a while my future has been uncertain as I decided long ago that I would not return to FLC in the fall and this trip has really made me desire to go to a bible school like BBC, or even BBC itself as I have already made many new friends there. I will be in extreme prayer over the next few months about what to do with my immediate future because I most definitely want to be following God's will and not just my own desires.

EL FIN

Live Long and Prosper,
Benjamin Renfro

More to come soon... I hope.

I apologize for the radio silence on this blog for the last few weeks. I write just about all the time which is why I started this blog thing in the first place. I intended to write something on here 2-3 times a week, but as you can see that just isn't happening. I have been working on about five different worthwhile posts and have thrown out about eight or nine drafts of others. Even though I might not have a real audience, it is good practice to pretend that I do. 

I am learning to rework how, and what, I write. Not everything I have to say is fit for an audience, or even humanity in general. I am putting filters on what flows from my brain and onto the keyboard. So often I find myself typing way past the time my brain turns off and because of this most of what I write is just nonsense. I end up hitting "publish" late at night right after I type it and I send it out there completely unedited which usually is a disaster. I deleted the post that was supposed to be my written testimony for that exact reason. I am going to start from scratch and rewrite it from the ground up, and hopefully it will be good this time. So, if you didn't get to read it before, don't fret; there will be a much better version in the foreseeable future. 

Live Long and Prosper, 

Benjamin Renfro

God is prepared. (Even when I am not)

Well today in church I was to get up and share my testimony with the entire congregation. As previously mentioned I was actually somewhat nervous to speak for once in my life. So I went where I go when I usually feel stressed or nervous: my computer. I tried typing last night but I was just too tired after being at my school all day helping run its "Day of Percussion", so I figured, "hey I can just wake up super early and type before I have to go to praise band practice". Even though I don't think of Sunday as a day of rest my body definitely knows it. I slept through both my regular alarm and my "just in case" cell phone alarm. I ended up only waking about thirty minutes before I needed to be at practice so all I had time for was a shower and pancakes.

 I then decide I will just type very quickly between practice and Sunday School. My class is small and consists of very lazy people so even though all of the other classes start at 9:15, our class doesn't start until about 9:45 most Sundays. After practice I go to my classroom to type before any others show up and I get about five sentences written before the teacher shows up 25 minutes earlier than usual. I am not good at refusing conversations so I felt obligated to talk to him about his week instead of typing.

My final option was to either sneak out of class ten minutes before the service starts and type it then, or just simply wing it. I didn't like either option very much but went with the former just to play it safe. I ended up typing on my laptop in front of the entire church while people filtered in, and was so engrossed in my sheer speed as a world class typist(not), that I didn't even realize the worship leader had started the first song without me. However, I am well versed in making musical mistakes seem like they were not mistakes at all; so I just joined in right at the first chorus and no one was the wiser. Despite my late musical arrival I was content for the time being because I had completed the main task; I had finished writing. Well twenty minutes later when the songs had been sung, the piano had been played, and the drums had been bashed, it was finally time for me to get up and talk.

Somehow all of my anxiousness and nervousness was gone. All of my insecurities about getting up and speaking were gone and had been replaced with a renewed vigor to share what God had placed on my heart. I boldly left the security of my laptop's notes behind and got up and just started talking. I talked about my life and when God wasn't in it. I talked about how much my life has changed since I put him in control. I talked about his unending love and how I finally came to accept it. I talked about the church and the role program's like AWANAs and my youth group have had on my life. I talked for a bit about where I see God in our church's future and how we should never lose the vision of hope that his grace and mercy brings. Finally I ended with a rather long prayer thanking the Lord for his faithfulness, grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, power, and unending devotion to me even though I reject him at almost every turn. There was no applause,  and no solid "AMEN" at the end of the prayer. No, there was only silence following all that I had said. My second mother (Terri) had to go get tissues, but that was about the extent of any sign of life in the audience. Silence is most definitely what I preferred as I was on the verge of tears from the emotional weight my message carried in my own heart. After sitting down I realized I had talked for almost twenty minutes, but I knew the pastor didn't mind one bit as everything I talked of fit perfectly like clockwork into what his sermon was about. He probably had to cut it short because of how much time I had taken, but to me it didn't seem like he was rushed in what he was sharing so all was good in the long run.

Immediately after the closing song ended I tried to get out of the building as fast as I could. I had no shame in anything I said. I just knew that tons of people would try and talk to me about it. to be honest I just don't know how to compose myself when taking compliments about my work. It has always been this way for me for as long as I can remember. Almost every Sunday some person will come up and thank me for my contribution to the music, or for a a recent special performance, but I can never just sit there and take it. It is not because I think they are wrong to compliment someone of their work, but when it is something at church the doer's motive should be to praise and please God, not any kind of glory for their talent and abilities. I know tons of church musicians that feel the same way. I don't know which side is right but regardless I just don't like people complementing me on music I make, or in this case, a testimony I share. Our stories and songs our not our own; they are a gift from God that no one should boast about.

Anywho, despite my shear awkwardness while being complemented there were still about two dozen people that came up and tried to talk to me. What's worse is when they come up to my mother and say, "You must be sooooo proud of your son". Really?!? I am standing right here! How could this conversation NOT be awkward for me?!?

 I don't know.... Maybe I just need to ask God for the ability to take a complement or two when I do something in his name, but I just feel like the glory shouldn't EVER be directed at me. I don't know if what I shared today made any actual difference on anyone's life. Heck, for all I know I could have gone up and said complete gibberish for twenty minutes and people complemented me just so I didn't feel bad.

Since what I actually shared today isn't much like my written testimony I will not post the one I wrote beforehand on here. However, I will either try and rewrite it to be what I actually shared, or I will try to post the actual audio recording of me sharing today. Leave a comment if you have a preference. There is also a possibility I wont do either as I am quite lazy and am not even sure anyone would read/ listen to it if I did post it. So if you don't see it posted by tomorrow and for some crazy reason actually want it then just message me on facebook or leave a comment here. Same goes for if anyone would want to read the original typed-out version as it is more structured than what I shared (I think), and brings more of my actual personal story into it.

75 Children or 30 Adults

About two weeks ago I got to have a nice long talk with my pastor over coffee about me seeing God leading me in a direction other than Fort Lewis College for right now. During the talk I shared with him parts of my testimony and how it fit into God's plan for me. After sharing this he replied by asking if I would share this on a Sunday in front of the church. Of course I said yes because I love being challenged and I was totally okay with speaking in front of tons of people. In the past I have always been great at speeches and whatnot so this didn't seem to task me much beyond the usual book report at school used to. As the days before my scheduled speech slowly counted down I started to fear failure. This is rare for me because usually I am great at speeches. In high school I got one of the highest grades in my speech class and I never prepared for the class once. I have this great ability to bull-crap my way through public speaking, but for once I was honestly nervous. This time it actually mattered.

What if I tell my story wrong? What if I get up there and just simply can't talk? What if? What if??.... These questions kept swirling in my mind like the USS Enterprise caught in a cosmic dust storm. The worst part was that I couldn't even pinpoint the source of these doubts. I had been fine at speeches before, so why now am I nervous as all heck? I eventually came to realize that the stakes were infinitely higher this time around and that is why I couldn't help but freak out a tiny bit. Who knows if my testimony could help change someone in the audience's life? Let's suffice it to say that this realization only messed with my mind more. However, eventually I came to the conclusion that the whole moral of my testimony was that God needs to be in complete control of my life. If I can truly accept this then this speech will be no problem. It is not me that is speaking about my life, but rather me following a calling to let God's power move me to share of all that he has done, is doing, and will do in my life.

So with renewed courage I decided to type out my testimony tonight so I can be prepared to not screw it up tomorrow. I will most likely post it on here as well but I will need to clean up the written copy a bit first as it currently looks like it was typed by a toddler. Oh and the title to this post is in reference to Sheldon Cooper's theory on how many people it takes to trample a public speaker to death. Two thumbs up if you got the reference without my explanation. 

Forgiveness Vs. Regression (Story of my life)

I have found myself dwelling way to much in my past over the last half year or so. I spend way too much time thinking of the endless possibilities of what could have been. The pain of past mistakes sometimes becomes so heavy I just break down and become decided to just move away where no one knows my name or face. I have even highly considered building a time machine so I can go back and just punch my past self very hard until all of my sins are undone. I end up in this depression for a while until I come to the inevitable conclusion: there is no way I can hide from the wrong I've done. This is an extremely depressing conclusion, but is sadly true. There is nothing I can do in my power that can undo the sins of my past. Thankfully this is not where the story ends.

Let's talk for a minute about love. God's love always continues to amaze me and I still will never be able to truly grasp its depth. Like I had mentioned in a previous post, the cornerstone of God's unfailing love is that we as humans always have a choice. When it comes to God's love there are only two options: to accept it, or reject it. There is no grey area between these distinctions, there is no middle ground, and there is no option to simply remain undecided. Once you truly make the choice to accept this love it will completely revolutionize everything about your life. It changes who you are, your entire identity. It changes who you will be in the future and all of your goals. Last, but certainly not least of all, it changes who you were. one might ask at this point, "how can this be?" The answer is simple: forgiveness. 

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old thing have passed away, and look, new things have come." - 2 Corinthians 5:17

The immense hope and joy that just this small verse can bring is incredible. Because of Christ's forgiveness I am literally a new man. My old self and all of my past mistakes are dead to the man that I can be in Christ. This gives way to so much hope for the future and freedom to share this joy and peace with others. This is one of those passages that is extremely hard to take seriously without wanting to cry. Everyone feels the weight of past mistakes. Everyone wishes they could simply have a redo button that could change the past. Not only does God's forgiveness give us reason to move on from what can't be changed, but it also gives us the opportunity to truly know it is forgotten in God's eyes.

Now to be honest I have had that verse memorized since I was about seven thanks to my church's AWANA program that teaches children to learn and memorize God's word. I have this verse and many others with similar meaning tattooed in the back of my mind, but somehow it is so easy to blow off the entire meaning of this immense message. So often I find myself dwelling on the past, but even worse, I sometimes find myself regressing to who I was back in the day. Truthfully I fail on a second to second basis, not just in forgetting my past, but also in avoiding repetition of past sins. No matter how hard I try I can never live up to this idealized "new creation" and it get overwhelming sometimes. I get so worn down by how much wrong I have done, am doing, or could do that I just end up depressed and start thinking about the past and the cycle starts all over again. 

This endless cycle is the proverbial "thorn in my flesh" as Paul talks about in his letters to the early church. My biggest thorn is honestly not letting go of my will. You see, I have plans for my life and goals for my future, but God has very different plans goals for me. Yes, his goals are bigger and infinitely better but at the same time my goals are familiar and comfortable. He doesn't like to let me know the full plan up front; He only reveals parts as he see fit... I have a problem with this. I am not the unadventurous type by any means; I just like to know the destination of the train before I buy the ticket. So I usually end up buying a ticket for a different train that I know is going the opposite direction, but at least I know the destination. This ends up with me getting myself very hurt either emotionally, or spiritually. I end up jumping off of my train and crawling, all bloody and beaten, but to the train station. This whole process will eventually end when I just man-up and get on board with God's plan, but this is difficult. His plan involves me giving up things I really want and things I think I need. His plan involves me growing up as a christian, but I, pulling a Peter Pan, am refusing. 

Thankfully the story doesn't end there because I have made my choice. I actually made it many months ago, but this seemed easier to write from a "Me- several months ago" perspective than a "Me- present day". No longer am I trying to get on the train of my will. This is not to say that now I am on the right train I wont try to hop off from time to time. The beauty of these escape jumps I am bound to have is that the true nature of God's forgiveness understands my weaknesses and want desperately to help me through them. That right there is what true love is.

I realize this story had little relevance to much of anything, but I felt impassioned to share a little bit of my personal story with my blog as it is a part of who I am. Also I love both trains and cheesy metaphors so this post worked out perfect. My future is unclear at the moment, but I am confident that the Lord will take me great places as long as I let him lead. I just hope and pray that more and more Christians will truly let go of control, because as believes we can do all things through Christ's  love and power. The Church, as God's tool, has the power to change the world and further his cause and his kingdom if, and only if, the individual believer will allow Christ to use them.

The joy of writing.

Well it's been a while since my last post but that hasn't been for lack of effort on my part. I have written the equivalent of about twenty single-spaced pages split into three different posts over the last few weeks, but not one of them really captured the essence of what I have been feeling for the past year. Writing has always helped me break down my problems so I can analyze them. It is my biggest weakness; that I have to share my thoughts with paper for me to truly understand them. I end up writing more than almost anything else which is partially why I started a blog in the first place. All of my thoughts and stories are just too long for facebook. However, this has ended up being much less of a traditional blog about my life events and more just a way for me to sort out my thoughts about said events. The best part is that this saves me tons of trouble.

 In life you will always have others who claim to be your "friend" but have little to no attachment to you at all. You spend valuable time pouring out little bits of your soul to these so-called friends but in reality they could care less. Then there are also those who you wouldn't really consider yourself friends with at all but who could genuinely care about you, or at least much more than some who you would actually call friends. This whole process is in itself a way to weed out the non-friends from friends. You see any who would actually care to know how my life is both physically and spiritually could just read what I post here (or you know, just ask me). Inversely, those who could care less feel no obligation to read as they likely know nothing of this pages existence in the first place. I realize there are some rather large holes in this ideology but it seems perfectly reasonable for the time being. The best part is if it turns out there is not one person who will ever read this then that works out fine too because I will never know one way or another so my only obligation is to keep writing.

There was much more I was to add to this about my future life goals and where I am going in the future but I have decided to post this by itself as the other writing does not connect with this part at all. This was a rant all in its own that I felt needed saying.

God Vs. Evil

In the endless debate of the existence of a Deity one of the seemingly irrefutable points brought up by the atheist community is that an omnipotent, omnipresent, all loving being couldn't have created or even exist in a world with evil in it. Sadly some theists don't know God well enough to answer this question so it, at many times, remains unresolved. I, however, feel that it can be boldly stated by any theist worth his weight that this point is not valid. First one must examine the nature of God through evidences appearing in the world. Secondly with this evidential nature of God in mind, and the traditional Christian view of God in mind, then assume that both these “Gods” are in fact the very same being. With evidence from both what the Bible says, and what is observable of the nature of God and of man; one can clearly see that it is not that God allows evil, but man who chooses it. The existence of evil does not in any way disprove the traditional Christian view of an all-loving God.

When looking for the true nature of God it is imperative to keep in mind that God himself is not bound to the same limitations we as humans are. For simplicity God will be referred to as a He in this paper. He has always been and always will be. This is paramount for him to truly be God as anything that hasn't always been must have started existing at a definite point: the point of creation. God is not a created being, but rather the creator. If there is anything that can be considered definitely good in the world then God, as creator, must also be all-good. As an all-good being his love for us would be completely unconditional. As God is all-good, all-loving being, and creator of all that is, then God becomes the very definition of what is morally good. Anything not of God would be morally bad, or evil. Since God's time line functions above human cognitive processing ability, because it has no beginning and no end, then it must also be assumed that: God is all-present, he functions on a higher level of consciousness then we do, and because of that he can see situations in different light and perspective. It is also imperative that we understand that he never changes. All of these ever-present observable facts about the nature of God (if he were to exist) coincide with the traditional Biblical view of who God is. So lets proceed on the basis that everything the Bible says about God is true.

I would just like to step aside from deity talk for a minute and talk about man. Man suffers; it is a clear fact that no one can deny. From child soldiers in Africa, to homelessness in intercity New York; it only takes seconds to think of the countless instances of suffering in the world. Most suffering can be linked to direct evil actions made by a human-related force. This is not to say that earthquakes and tsunamis are cause by instances of evil, but that a large bulk of suffering is. An all-loving God literally can't be in the presence of evil as it is completely contradictory to his nature. The bible refers to evil as “sin”. which is considered anything that separates man from God. In Matthew 27:46 while Jesus (God's own son), was dying he became the embodiment of everyone's sin and in that moment God was forced to look away from his own son while Jesus yells, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani”. This literally translates to, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me”. From this alone it is extremely evident that God cannot abide to be in the presence of evil to the point of having to turn away from his own son as he was dying. So how then can evil exist in a world God created?

The Bible claims that it is in fact because of God's unending love that evil exists. I fully understand that this seems very backwards and false but I would like bring back the general observation about God's nature: that he functions on a higher level on consciousness than we do because he is all-loving where as we are limited because of the Sin in our lives. In John 3:16 the Bible says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life”. This tells us that an all-loving God is willing to give his son to die for us simply so we can live. The second part of that verse tells again of the limitless love without directly using the word. The second half talks about choice, “whoever believes in him”. So not only did an all powerful being love us enough to send his son to die but he went a light-year further by giving us the free will to either accept, or reject his love. Let's stop for a minute and talk about what the Bible says about love. In 1 Corinthians Paul writes about true Godly love by saying, “Love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy or boast, it is not conceited, it does not act improperly, it is not selfish, it is not provoked, it keeps no record of wrongs.” This seems truly impossible for any human to live that description out everyday, every week, and every year of one's entire life, but this is what God has done for us. The entire description of love involves an unconditional devotion that never changes. This fits with what we previously said was part of the nature of God; that his love was both unconditional and that he never changes. His unconditional love is love that, regardless of what we do as people, he loves us the same. Any love in which he only loves us when we love him back in measure would be considered conditional love. The difference between these two types of loves is freedom. For God to truly love us we must have the choice to reject his love. This leaves us as humans with only two choices in life: to reject God's love, or to accept it.

Does this apply to the God Vs. Evil debate? It completely does. This in a sense is the debate itself. If man has two choices then one is to follow God's love and direction, and the other is to reject it. Since God defines what inherent good is then choosing the path of rejection, in itself, creates evil. At this point the atheist would stand up and say, “if God is all powerful the he could achieve the outcome of people choosing God over evil without cases of suffering”. This is all well and good if you define evil as something God created. God didn't create evil as it is against his nature. God created all that is good (Genesis chapter 1), and by creating us, we define evil as anything against his nature. Since any God, Christian deity or not, must unconditionally love his creation, his creation must have the choice to a condition itself.

Once again the atheist will stand up and proclaim that there are cases of suffering in which God could have prevented it without loosing a greater, and because of this this can't be an all-good God. To this I again return to the Bible where it says in Romans chapter 3, “ there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks after God. All have turned away; all alike have become useless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one”. This boils down to saying that everyone is evil, and that no matter how hard anyone tries they cannot reach God's level of perfection. There are no “good people” because the very definition of good is God and we can never attain his level of perfection. “Sin entered the world through man, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12). “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23). It is very clear that because of sin everyone deserves death. Let me remind quickly that sin itself is by man's choice, not God's creation. So I ask now does this argument hold up? Are there cases of suffering that serve no purpose or have no cause related to sin? The fact is according to the Bible there is not. As a result of our separation from God, by our own choice, we allowed sin to conquer our world. To some this may seem way too harsh of a conclusion to come from an all loving God, but the only person that can honestly make that claim without being a hypocrite would have to be completely blameless and it is very apparent that no human alive can honestly claim that. According to the Bible the only man who can claim blamelessness is Jesus, and he himself was fully God.

At this point it is clear that a Biblical worldview can cover any of the common objections against the existence of God due to the presence of evil. The biblical picture of God follows all natural observations of what the nature of God must be. Apart for an all-loving, all-good God we see a world filled with suffering. The biblical God loves man unconditionally which means that man must have a condition (choice) that is other than God. Any choice other than God would be the opposite of his nature which we call sin. Because man is inherently unrighteous in his choice of sin over God's love, there are not any cases of suffering that serve no purpose. Because of God's forgiveness we have the choice to have our slate wiped clean and begin anew. According to this traditional Biblical view, God's existence does not conflict with Evil's existence because God loves man unconditionally, and because of this choice we, as humans, choose evil.

Introduction

          A few nights ago I couldn't sleep so as usual when I can't sleep I opened up a Word document and just start typing. These "papers", for lack of better term, never followed any kind of format or had any relation to my other "papers". They usually start coherent but became much less so as I continued to write and usually involved way too much dead-pan humor for their own good. Anyways I was up typing again this particular night when I had the brilliant idea to start a blog to fill with my thoughts and my life. This all went hunky-dory until, while creating the blog, I was required to give a name to my blog. Now I realize that probably no one will ever read this blog but it helps to pretend I have an audience sometime. This concept of putting a simple name to everything in my head was hard indeed; I had the option to make it something humorous, but then I would end up wanting to change it on a daily basis. No, this had to be a name that meant more than just a few letters scrunched together to form words. It had to actually mean something. This frustrated me so I simply walked away from my computer for a long while and didn't use it again for days.

          Eventually a few nights later I turned on my computer, which had been on sleep mode, and saw once again the prompt for a name. It didn't bother me this time as much  since I didn't power-up my laptop with the intent to resolve it. I just simply got on facebook and started to scroll down my news feed for a while until I simply couldn't anymore. I usually get upset while on facebook but this night was particularly bad. Over half of the non-status posts were of some random girl taking another less-than-modest picture of themselves posing with some duck face. This always upsets me because every girl has so much more to offer to the world than posing for some inappropriate cell phone picture. God has so much more to offer these girls then this life of social self-abuse they feel is necessary. I also noticed how many friends I have who had posted about getting wasted or doing some new kind of drug. This is what our so-called civilized society calls good.... WHAT? This is good? Pain is joy? Sorrow is abundant happiness? I think not. This society simply lacks innocence and purity and no one can deny it . So where is it? Where did this innocence go? Can we as humans say we ever really had any true innocence or purity? I would say yes.

          In my church I have worked with children in our AWANA program for years and I can definitely say that there is a distinct level of child-like wonder, faith, and innocence in these children that is not present in older crowds. So should we just all pull a Peter Pan and never grow up? Is it better to just die young so we never become corrupted by this evil impure world? The obvious place to look for answers (for me anyways) when faced with hard questions is always the Bible.

        There are many times in the Bible that Jesus speaks of children. The most famous perhaps is Matthew 19:13-15. I won't quote the whole passage but the end of verse 14 states (regarding children), "the kingdom of heaven is made up of people like this". Wow! Jesus just there put an outright statement that we should have the innocence of a child. At this point a lot of people turn away from Christianity because, even if they can't admit it to the outside world, they know deep down they lack the innocence they once had as a child. Fortunately for ALL people Christ died on the cross so we can permanently have that innocence again. It doesn't matter what you have done in life if Christ has the power to forgive it entirely. "If anyone is in Christ he is a NEW creation; the old things have passed away, and look, new things have come." - 2 Cor. 5:17. What does this mean for us humans exactly? What this honestly means is freedom in Christ. Freedom from who we were, and freedom from any kind of dark path we are currently headed towards. He loves us regardless of our past and through him we CAN have this innocence again. For me, at least, this is the most comforting thing. This give me peace in my most turbulent times. I have hope while at my lowest moments because through him I am made new. and that ladies and gentlemen is the best thing since man created fire, or hot dogs... maybe even better than both.... Actually yes, I would have to say it is better.