So, reading Blue Like Jazz and Reason For God has got me thinking-my life is boring and pointless. Sounds harsh, but its true. I haven't done a whole lot with my life except become really good at guitar, learn to surf, and have a good time. I haven't done anything very bad, or even illegal- well, I take that back. I did steal a satsuma from a neighbor's tree coming back from a surf one day last fall, but it was kind of overripe anyway, and they weren't even going to pick them. (Darwin would have called it natural selection, but he still hasn't said whether he thought it was right or not.)
Whether or not my life has been "good", it hasn't been useful to a whole lot of people. My greatest accomplishment has probably been my ability to play the guitar. I'm not gonna lie, I am actually very good, and have been playing professionally for a couple of years now. But the only really great use i've put that to is leading worship. worship through music is present whenever music is heard and changes our heart to admire God. At first, I didn't realize this.
About two years ago, i was in a band. We were good-we played shows around town and things like that, and led worship at a church on Sunday night so we could practice in their Youth Room on Saturdays. Sooner or later, the lead singer went off to college, and we eventually drifted apart.
About a year ago, the Youth Pastor of the church we practiced at asked me if i would lead worship for them again, since they had no youth band. I had never been in front of people without a band, so i figured i should start practicing if i didnt want to make a fool of myself.
So, i did. I became very good at talking into a microphone, and very good at saying spiritual things. I could fake my way through a worship set without even thinking about the one i was (supposedly) singing to.
I eventually became fed up with the whole business, but not for the reasons you would think. People stopped coming, and the ten or twenty people now coming on sundays to FMC Youth wasn't enough to satisfy my craving for attention.
It wasn't until almost 3 months later that I realized what I had done. I hadn't been worshipping God, and I certainly wasn't leading anyone anywhere but a place to admire how good at music I was. I hadn't been loving God-i was simply using him. writing this, i now realize what a sin it is to misuse the name of God.
I also now realize how important it is to believe in and to fight for something-to literally spend yourself for something bigger than yourself.

The book of James says that the only religion that God accepts as pure and faultless is taking care of the poor, and keeping yourself from being polluted by the world. In my life so far, I have been too focused on the latter. Don't get me wrong, it is a worthy goal, but it is only half of the picture. God redeems and cleanses us by the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit for the purpose of us spilling ourselves for one another-and i feel so much more excited now that i realize this.

Jordy's Visual Argument

as it turns out, the pics are in reverse order. sorry for the confusion!

This is an example of pathos, because it uses a visually stimulating method of expressing an ideal to touch the audience’s emotions. The labeled hearts play upon a well-known cliché-that in our hearts, we are all exactly the same-but in a new way that takes the audience a second to comprehend what is going on, but is interesting enough to compel the audience to look further.


This ad shows a good example of logos, because it uses logic to show that this particular brand of paper towel is better than all the other brands, because of its “strength and added softness to handle any mess.” This plays on our human tendencies to want the biggest and best deal there is for our daily lives. The hero shot of the messy baby also has an appeal to pathos, because it makes us want to clean up the baby.

These Nike Jordan tennis shoes appeal to ethos, because they present the argument, that if you buy Michael Jordan’s tennis shoes, you will be able to play basketball more like Michael Jordan. It does not directly imply this, but the emphasis on the tennis shoes being “Michael Jordan brand” shoes designed specifically for basketball places the importance of the shoes on the fact that Michael Jordan wears them, not because they are great shoes. This is called an appeal to authority, and is a widely used tool for marketing.

President Obama’s speech was inspiring when he stated that the future of the country rested on young people, and when he said that everyone had something they were good at, but they might not know it until they do it for school. This was interesting to me, because it put school in the light of a place to discover what your talents are, rather than a place to learn boring facts about numbers and letters and words and people that died a billion years ago. It was very interesting.
The goals that president Obama inspired me to set this year are to complete the most classes I can get college credit for, so I can get those out of the way, to never move to Hawaii for more than a year, because it might make me want to go to law school, and to take up as many opportunities as I can to play with other people and for other people. I also want to look at colleges in a more realistic way, and try to narrow down the list of schools I want to go to.
Some great things I might like to do with my life would definitely have to do with music in some form. Sometime in my life, I want to do an extensive study on music and be able to understand fully what’s going on in the most complicated pieces, and to hopefully progress that science. The end result, then, would be able to inspire other guitarists (and all musicians) with my music.

This bumper sticker found handily on Facebook uses an interesting technique to convey its argument-it refers to a known fact about a famous person, and uses it to make an argument against this person in general-in this case, George Bush, and the fact that he was born in Texas. It dosent specify what policies or actions former president Bush did that the creators of this bumper sticker didn’t agree with, which is an example of ad hominem-to the man, in Latin. This means that the creator of this bumper sticker is attacking his opponent’s(in this case, George Bush) character or heritage, or motives for believing something or taking a certain action, instead of disproving a certain argument.

sorry about that-the earlier post was in a black font, and didnt show up!