Lucy

I remember sitting there in a class this last year in Nancey Murphy and Warren Brown's Portraits of Human Nature when lecture materials eventually turned to the proposal for human mental scaffolding. Let the reader know, the premise of the class was that human beings are emergent, singular entities understood to have matured, evolved even, over millions of years to become the persons they currently are. The class entertained topics such as monism (that humans do not possess souls, but ought to be conceived of as whole entities), the Resurrection of the Dead, and evolution.


This evening, after I finished cleaning up dinner dishes (Henry made a very tasty pizza, mmm) we were listening to NPR when a quick news blurb came on during a commercial break during Talk of the Nation about a new fossil display that would be making its way to the US (Texas, to be specific). Discovered some thirty years ago in Ethiopia, the "3.3 million-year-old skeleton of a child, the oldest child fossil on record", has come to be called by the scientific community as "Lucy." I had not thought about Lucy since taking this class, but as soon as I heard her name on the radio I was reminded of the way I first felt about her. Mind you, at the time of this class I had never been presented in a formal lecture setting a pro-evolutionary biology lesson. Accordingly, to be instructed of this material by one of my all-time favorite Fuller profs and a well respected neuro-psychologist was, to say the least, thrilling (seriously). Soaking all of this wonderful knowledge in, a feeling of gratitude for all the years of perseverance and triumph Lucy represented was almost too much to take. Certainly, this course came the quarter after the quarter I had a class on the writings of J. Moltmann (in which I discovered just how much process theism lay beneath my theological constructions), and perhaps that correlation ought to have something to say about how sometimes I am all too susceptible to being caught up in some new idea to me and don't give enough personal, critical thought. Nevertheless, I could not help but feel that throughout all the years of evolution God was guiding his creation to something new and relational. Something about this Deity's forbearance to wait long enough to one day engage with these hominid ancestors of ours is beautiful. I guess that it just made me feel proud to be a part of something that has been going on for millions of years and, so long as we don't greenhouse gas our way into extinction, will continue on into the future.

So, in conclusion, I would like to thank Henry for making a delicious pizza tonight, NPR for providing helpful news wire updates, Nancey Murphy and Warren Brown for a thought-provoking class lecture, and God for having such great resolve to see creation to this point in history, even when we mess things up all the time.

If you loving composting so much, then why don't you marry it?

I am gonna shoot straight with you right now. I love the idea of making my own fertilizer with my half-rotted, worm-eaten banana peels and lettuce. The other day I composted for the first time. Happily, I avoided a sophomoric rookie mistake of simply dumping my decomposing vegetable peels onto the leafy goodness, remembering the brief training I received from one of the elder statesmen of Allelous, Susan Young, wife of Steve Young (not the former 49ers QB with a rocket cannon for an arm, the cooler version; the one with homemade bookshelves brimming to the top with multiplicitous theological treatises--ah, books.) Anyway, as I took that shovel in my hands and began to unearth what lay beneath this shallow grave of bio-degradables, I rejoiced in the fact that one day these remnants of food would be transported to just outside my window to help nourish the small garden Dave, Henry and myself hope to landscape in the next few months. Can you imagine it? Waking up and going outside to pick some fresh fruit to sweeten up a healthy bowl of bran cereal, or returning from work and before you step into the house plucking a delicious cucumber for the evening's salad. I can't wait. So I guess that until the day comes when I am getting on in age, white-haired and allowed to be beligerent to little children, who choose to run on my freshly mowed lawn (that is, Old Man Thompson--please be patient, a blog explaining this dream persona will one day follow), I will have to resign myself to Tree-Hugging, hopefully-not-anemic, Farmer Thompson.

1314 Los Robles #BB

Well, yesterday it finally happened. A long-anticipated day of moving came and went without a hitch (except for Henry's box springs falling out of my mom's truck only to be quickly snatched up by the expedient hands of one C. Laine Julian). At this present moment in reality, only the bedroom found its way into some semblance of order before both Henry and I crashed (our third roommate Awesome Dave, who will be gracing the Southland with his charming presence this weekend, will, sadly enough, not be moving in until early September). Nevertheless, Henry and I have avowed to carry out a pre-emptive strike upon the clutter of this house with policy of sock and awe that would make William Kristol and the rest of his neo-conservative PNAC friends proud.

Anyway, I am gonna have to take off now and take me a Greek quiz. Today we are being tested on the subjunctive mood. Accordingly, because I studied very little for this quiz, I might not do so well on it. Then, I could get lucky and pass it with flying colors making it look like I studied for several hours the day before. Personally, I would settle for something in the middle.

Well, here's to new apartments, massive cleaning efforts and barely scathing by on foreign language examinations.

No need for a spoiler alert...I know how to keep my mouth shut

So, I just finished the fourth installment of Harry Potter today. All I have to say is, "Wow! Didn't see that coming." Perhaps this J.K. Rowling character knows a thing or two about this writing business. Anyway, book number five coming up. But first I think I shall indulge myself with a brief dissertation on the correlation between Quantum Physics and Divine Action. Oh top-down, bottom-up causation, how I love thee.

My shmi-pod brings all the boys to the yard...

Ok, so for my twenty-fifth birthday some very wonderful people purchased me my very first iPod. Kinda sounds like the sort of thing Fisherprice might make. Anyway, receiving this present as a collaborated effort between my parents and Holly, along with all the other prizes she got me (the soundtrack to Wicked, some original recordings of MLK, a gift card to the local Apple store so I could buy a protective case for the shmi-pod, and so on) helped make this birthday, arguably, the best ever. And then after all the prizes and a little Chuck Shaw in the prayer garden we headed back to her house for what I thought would be a night full of cheese, crackers and West Wing. Instead, the was a whole surprise party awaiting me on her back patio. Wow. Anyway, I say all of this in order to kill some time while I download some podcasts (some from the NY Times, The Economist and of course ABC's This Week with my number one political man-crush, and Michael Bluth look-a-like, George Stephanopoulos--though, admittedly, he is still a close second behind Brad Pitt; there is just something about that chiseled jaw structure). Aren't these weekly-updated little bits of news, etc the greatest thing in the world (yes, of course, not as great as the salvific atonement our Lord Jesus Christ apportioned for all of humanity upon the cross at Calvary and then by raising from the dead three short days later, but then again I thought that might be a given by now--it has been our sub-context for nearly two millennia). Well, it looks as though i am finished downloading. Hope you all have a great day. Bye Bye.

Like looking in a mirror...

Today I spent the afternoon in good ole Fullerton, California hanging out with my nephew Samuel Richard Dunn. Cute little guy. No Crocs, and yet Holly seems to think highly of him (it's nice that my girlfriend's appreciation of my one and only nephew is not conditional like that). The thing with Sam is that he is a spitting image of me when I was one year old. Biologically it makes sense, because he is the son of my twin sister Jessie, nevertheless, it is kinda weird thinking it is like a little me running around the house calling everything in sight "dadda." His blue eyes, his thin, blond hair, his intrigue for shoe laces...all the same. Concerning those shoe laces, he happened to exhibit the greatest length of attention span his parents have ever seen today whilst playing with my shoes. What they didn't notice was the spell I cast over him--uncleus captivatum--that made him stop playing with his Thomas the Train toy--stupid push train--and pay some attention to yours truly.


Anyway, a pretty cool day in all, even though as I write this I am wallowing in my own sweat--it's really hot here in at my parents house.


Well, I hope everyone has a great day. Here's to making this a thoroughly commented blog posting.

The Truth...

By now you might have expected that from my last blog I would have taken and mastered the LSAT. While that once was the plan, in the end, such did not transpire. Sad day. It was truly a sad day when I came to the conclusion that I was not going to be prepared as I ought for this most important examination. I apologize to my friends and family for not disclosing this information in some sort of mass communication. Currently, I am planning to study for the LSAT in order to take it in mid September. Well, there you go. The truth is hard to tell sometimes, but is indelibly necessary.

Until next time...

LSAT...

Sometimes, while I am laying bed at night, I dream about Monday June 11th. I dream about rolling up to Western State University College of Law taking the test that may very well determine a significant portion of my professional career. I can imagine a 168 and going to Notre Dame or perhaps Boston College. I can think about loving this three-year boot camp studying international and environmental law. I can daydream about being quite successful at this profession, traveling around the world playing a part to defend the earth and the oppressed. But the only problem is taking this damn test.

I have been studying for a couple weeks now since the beginning of the quarter (late March), and while I am learning how to dissect logic games and analyze parallel reasoning questions, I feel that the learning curve it still pretty high. It is after study sessions like the one tonight that I can also imagine that I might pull a 140. Needless to say, that simply will not do. To say the least, I am pretty nervous about the LSAT. I just wish that I could call them and tell ND and BC that I am a good guy, maybe pass the phone over to Holly and have her corroborate said testimony and that would be that. Ya, that would be nice. Then I could go about my day (and my quarter for that matter) and stop worrying about "if/then" causation and logical flaws.

And yet.... That's not how it works. There is only one way out of this predicament.

"Okay she-bitch, lets play."