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Name: miles
Country: United States
Gender: Male
Interests: God, Videography, Hiking, Drawing, Camping, Exercising, Quality Time with a good friend, Traveling, Martial Arts, Teaching, Ballroom Dancing. (in no particular order and not totally comprehensive)
Expertise:
U.S. Marine Corps
Communications Officer
rank: Captain
Occupation: Military
Industry: Government
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
2/19/2003
 Lifetime
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| it's been a while since i've journaled but i seem to be distracted with so many other things. or perhaps, i now have another half i can confide my thoughts to when i've feeling introspective. as i write this, i'm in lake tahoe with a marine buddy of mine and we just finished hitting the slopes pretty hard with our snowboards. i'm feeling quiet but i have no wonderful wife to talk to and no distractions to keep me occupied.
so here are my thoughts: it is about a sudden flood of old memories that hit me as my friend and i rode up to lake tahoe. i haven't been up here since my college years and all those times were with my close friends. nostalgia kicked in but so did the remembrances of paths not chosen. i began to look back in my college years and realized that i either had words unsaid, things undone, or paths not pursued.
that's a funny thing about regrets. they tend to haunt you. i know that God brought me to where i am but the devil does seem to have a knack for bringing the past to the future to make you question it. i like to think that i always try to do what God deems best for me, but being human, i don't always. much like some of the slopes that my friend and i snowboarded down, there were times when i knew the right thing to do but fear or hesitation made me do something else thus resulting in snow in the face.
i sometimes wonder how often the past will be brought to my present. i am often hard at myself because i don't like not doing the right thing and i don't like loose ends. i know there is sometimes little i can do but learn from them. i can only hope that i actually do.
"The sorrows of those will increase
who run after other gods.
...
I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me
I have set the LORD always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken."
Psalms 16:4,7-8
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| it's done. (well, mostly)
noelani and i are officially and almost totally moved in to our new home in pacific grove, california. we're renting a 100-year old victorian house registered with the historic society located half a block from the beach. it's still a little surreal to be living in such a nice place in such a beautiful location. we're within walking distance of cannery row and the monterey aquarium.
i haven't officially started school at the naval post graduate school yet but i checked in already. it'll be nice to go to school again --- especially since i won't have to work at the same time. the next two years will go quick, i think. in the meantime though, we're trying to establish our patterns again. we've found a place where we can go ballroom dancing. we've found some nice restaurants within walking distance. and we've found our after-dinner walking path.
more importantly, we've begun looking for a church we can be involved in. we did some research on some churches around us and we found a few that have potential. i found myself doing a cursory study on certain denominations or the church's doctrinal views. it can be difficult, i think, to find a good church nowadays. there are quite a few with some wacky theologies and it's sometimes hard to tell on the first visit.
despite the awesome scenery and living in a "vacation" home, we don't intend to forget the assembling with other christians. we hope and pray that we will find one without too much delay.
"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching."
Hebrews 10:23-25
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| i dropped off my dear wife today at church so she and her group could rehearse their ballet for one last time before the easter service. as i sat in IHOP, i began to continue my reflection on easter. i recalled that the early church (back in the day) chose to celebrate Christ's resurrection on the same day as the pagan celebration of spring to give an christian alternative to the day. i always wondered about the rabbits and eggs though...
after some research, i found that eastre was actually an anglo-saxon fertility goddess symbolized by the hare. the egg represented a more ancient babylonian fertility goddess named ishtar. i find it so very ironic that so many thousands of years later, rabbits and egg hunts are now the dominant alternative to Christ's resurrection.
reflecting on easter some more, i began to digest the difficult yet key aspect of the christian faith --- the resurrection of the Christ. after all, if Jesus never rose again, the prophesies wouldn't have been fulfilled and it would prove that isn't what He claimed to be.
but how can i know the resurrection to be true? i wasn't there after all. is blind faith the answer? it doesn't come to that. there are scriptural and secular evidences.
now, i didn't do detailed theological or apologetic research (those resources are thin at IHOP) so i just delved on the psychology of it all. if the disciples did (somehow) defeat the armed and trained roman praetorians guarding the tomb to steal Jesus' body as many skeptics claim, it poses a different difficulty.
would a band of disciples, knowing that their messiah was dead, be so willing to suffer and die for him? sane followers would've questioned their faith. con artists would've jumped ship once death was the punishment. delusional zealots wouldn't have had such a unified message.
belief in the resurrected Christ isn't such a "mythological" claim once you acknowledge that God could exist. in fact, it actually makes more sense. the question is, are we really interested in knowing the truth?
-the apostle paul making his claim of Christ's resurrection-
"...and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised...If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied."
1 Corinthians 15:14-15, 19
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| i didn't want to publish it before because i would've hated to recant my intentions. in december, i applied for naval post graduate school. if accepted, it would've meant moving up to monterey, california for two years and owing the marine corps an additional four years as a payback tour. for all intents and purposes, the marine corps would be paying me to go to school full-time.
despite the obvious advantages, a lot of prayer, talking, weighing, counsel, and more prayer took place. noelani and i wanted to make sure it was God's will for us. at some point, we just trusted God would open or close the door to us according to His will and we trusted that God had a plan for us no matter what.
fast forward to today. i opened my work e-mail this morning to find congratulations from seniors and colleagues on my acceptance to NPS. needless to say, i'm a bit happy about the whole thing. as mentioned, we knew God would take care of us one way or the other, but the news was exciting anyway.
so in june this year, i report up in NPS to begin my course in IT management. i already have numerous thesis topics to choose from given by work colleagues and seniors. i'm even getting endorsements to return back to where i work now once i graduate. i'm definitely excited. God is too gracious to me. praise God. praise God.
"All a man's ways seem innocent to him,
but motives are weighed by the LORD.
Commit to the LORD whatever you do,
and your plans will succeed. "
Proverbs 16:2-3
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| a while back, my parents talked about going back to the philippines for long overdue reunions. 4 days ago today, we landed in the philippines. it's been 23 years since i first left my native country and 9 years since my last (and only other) visit. so many old memories came flooding back as we visited old stomping grounds and family. i had to crouch down to my 10-year old height sometimes to get the perspective i once had during my most vivid memories. there's a certain sense of euphoria from it all.
catching up with grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins that i haven't seen (or never met!) has also been heartwarming. over the past three days, all we've done is have all day parties with lots of food. i'm really enjoying the fact that i have noelani with me. i'm letting her into a part of my world that i couldn't describe in stories or pictures. i think she's finally understanding the origins of my humor and some of my convictions.
i love too that my parents are enjoying themselves. their conversations are lasting for hours as they talk with family. they then spend more with noelani and i as they share childhood stories and family histories. re-connecting with family has been so awesome. it's been helping me realize how important family is again.
hmmm... i think there's a spiritual analogy to this as well.
"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves."
Ephesians 1:4-5
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