Unobtrusive

Understanding complexity of concepts is often
needlessly painful when we are afraid to play with the
obvious, afraid of humble beginnings, afraid of
being deemed as silly.
The truth be told if we examine little things and then
reconsider the larger picture, often our turmoil turns'
unexpected joy,
speedily causing hunger to learn and
instead of overwhelming ourselves we become
vivacious for what previously proved
eminent confusion.

Post Secondary Plan

Post Secondary Plan... A little assignment for careers but I would like to share with all of you who want to know my heart for the next few years.
My post secondary journey will start next fall at Seattle Pacific University where I will study Urban and Global development with a minor in history. I plan to pursue Air Force ROTC as a method of provision for school and an outlet for physical competition, leadership, and international experience. In Seattle I will also be pursuing music, playing small shows in the coffee shops (as another form of resource), and serving at a local church working with the homeless population and mentoring young people.
After the four years of undergraduate school with all the extracurriculars that go with it I will present a request to the Air Force to postpone the required service in it and both allow and provide for me to pursue law so that I could better serve the Air Force. I believe that request will be granted because during the interview process for ROTC the major that interviewed me encouraged me telling me that it would not be the first time the Air Force has paid for law school and even Harvard Law School.
These plans for education in undergraduate will lay the ground work for graduate school, graduate school will lay the foundation for a career of international law in the Air Force, and the Air Force provides for the education, allows for a job after school, and lays the foundation for my dreams for life and law as a tool for mission and provision for my future family.
After I retire with the Air Force I will have the benefits of a veteran, experience that will allow for a good private venue to practice law, and the financial freedom to travel, serve, and pour into the church and my family. I am hoping to be involved not only in private law in the U.S but also in probono around the world for the poor and orphaned, the farmers and the organizations that cannot afford a professional voice in the legal system.
As a final goal I hope to pursue judgeship and civil service in whatever area I am led. All of these plans, hopes, and dreams are in the sifter but I do believe that they will prove gold refined in the furnace that has been my life these four years of high school and will continue to be purified in the crucible that life will continue to provide.

The Contrast Painted

Jordan Wolfe
03/09/2009
Philosophy

The Contrast Painted.
Plato vs. Aristotle
The teacher and the student, Plato and Aristotle both widely respected thinkers with radically different thoughts. Not everyone was satisfied with Plato's universal truth and higher reality that he found in the thought of a thing rather than its form. Aristotle was one of those that found himself not completely satisfied with the thoughts of his mentor. In his works he stands in almost complete contrast with the thoughts Plato laid out. This is Idealism vs Realism, Universal against individual, and form as opposed to the concept of that form.
Plato was an idealist that stressed the power of unchanging truths that he called universals. He painted his ideas in the allegory of the cave where he displays the power of shadows and of partial truth. His question was that if individuals are only exposed to the shadows projected on the wall then will they not consider those shadows to be reality? He argues that the world in which we live is only shadows and images of the real world. The more real world is one that is beyond what we can deductively or inductively understand with our senses and must be understood and applied through intellect and ideas.
Now we have Plato's student Aristotle who would say, “Wait just one stinkin moment! Lets use logic to study the things we see and then build off of them some more probable conclusions!” Aristotle was a realist and he teaches that reason is divine. He would say we should not go straight to the ideas that are untouchable but rather to what we know and then by understanding the shadows project probable conclusions. His political belief also stands in the face of Plato's ideals in that he believed the state to be the higher priority than the family. That individuals cannot be complete in who they are but rather are made whole by fulfilling they're part in society. He would say that slaves made by capture in war are totally okay because those that lose the war are inferior to the winners and will actually do better being ruled by their superiors.
Plato's political views are heavy in idealism which Aristotle criticized as being to far from this reality. Mr. P wanted a utopia and wrote about concepts of community even to the degree of communal ownership of wives. Aristotle although placing the state ahead of the family disagreed with abolishing he family because he said the state is made up of families. Communal ownership he argued would mean no private property and with out property the management of households and families is lost.
Each of these thinkers wanted to find universals but the arguments come when we put at odds their different vehicles for reaching them. Aristotle believes that through examination of particulars or what he called the “essence” of things we can reach the universals. Plato believed that universal existed outside of the particulars and extended further than Aristotle's natural philosophy. This is where the argument gets interesting in that you can begin looking into the concepts of love, hope, and faith. In plugging these concepts into their vehicles we see that it is at best it is hard to piece together particulars about them and at worst it is impossible. Love goes beyond the logic of Aristotle and though he dominated thinking for thousands of years on many topics I think I would have to give at least a piece of the battle on love as a victory to Plato.
Both of these incredible thinkers create a beautiful tension upon which we can stand and look into our lives, our society, and our world and question what is true and how the truth is applied. I believe that both of them would agree that fearless questioning and study of life, love, and all that goes with it is not only an honorable pursuit but a life giving one.

Jesus Christ! Ahhhh! For Philosophy

To answer the question, “How do you know something is True?” we must first define what truth is. The question of, “what is truth?” has been asked for thousands of years and is central to philosophy. Because the question is so big and so controversial I have researched what has already been argued and will use an essay entitled Truth from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as a reference. I will also revisit what many of you have already said in our forum, each of you had some great thoughts, and finally, I will reference Websters Dictionary.

According to Webster truth is conformity with fact or reality: verity, a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle or the like: mathematical truths. According to the Neo- classical correspondence theory a belief is true if there exists an appropriate entity—a fact—to which it corresponds. If there is no such entity, the belief is false. If we were to ask a Pragmatist he may tell us, “Truth is the end of inquiry.” Or, “True beliefs are guaranteed not to conflict with subsequent experience.” You, (my peers) have said that truth is seeing, truth is individual, and truth you say, is when a belief is backed with evidence. There are so many thoughts here and I agree in part with all of them, with the exception of anything Bunker has to say.

Truth does not contradict, it can be verified, and there is no substantial proof to its contrary. A fingerprint can be matched to a suspect and used in a court of law when there are 10 points of correspondence with the reference print and no point that contradicts. When there is reference, evidence, and no proof to give substantive sway into disbelief then it is true.

Now the question of Universal Truth is where things get sticky, but I will say it straightforward, if there is no truth that is a common thread throughout the universe there would be no foundation off of which to build any sort of understanding or knowledge. I believe that there are individual beliefs and that there are individual convictions, but I do not believe that what is individual can in anyway unground Universal Truth.

With these definitions of truth I can place the Bible into a category of being true. It was written by 40 known authors over a period of 1400 to 1800 years and it has not one contradiction in it. It is backed up with reference points in history, archeology, fulfilled prophecy, experience, and thousands and thousands of eye witness accounts and documented experiences. So with the bible as a reference I will use John 14:6 to close and to open for discussion.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man come to the Father, but by me.”

Lullaby

Lullaby
C#m B A2
Lullaby oh goodnight my friend
C#m B A2
Wont you stay here beside me now
C#m B A2
And I will sing you melodies that
C#m B A2
Have never been sung before


Lullaby oh goodnight my friend

Let me stay here beside you now

And I will sing in harmony with

The beatings of your heart

E B C#m A2
I will sing you a song tonight, tonight
E B C#m A2
I will sing it loud and strong tonight,

Or if you’d rather I will just


Lullaby oh goodnight my friend

I will sing you a song tonight

And I will pour out a whispered prayer

For you to hold me tight


Take me there to the place of reality in grace
Take me deeper pull me closer now (X2)

All I Want

All I Want

Verse 1 G F#/G C
I cannot sleep tonight
G F#/G C
I don’t know why
G F#/G C
Its not that I’m thinking
G F#/G C Am
It’s more that I don’t know what to think anymore
Am
Anymore.

Verse 2 G F#/G C
Feeling poor and lonely
G F#/G C
There is a draught in my dreaming
G F#/g C
This heart is hard and hurting
G F#/G C
Would you please trade with me your magic seeds
Am G F#/G G
So I can climb, Into the sky

Chorus Am C G
All I want to do… is what your doing
Am C G
All I want to say… is what your saying
Am C G F#/G C
And All I want to be….yeah, is you have for me

Verse 3 G F#/G C
Castle in the clouds
G F#/g C
I will come to you there
G F#/G C
When I close my eyes

G F#/G C
And stow away upon the melodies you sing to me
Am
Sing to me in the night
Am
In the night

Verse 4 G F#/G C
Speak to me softly in the night
G F#/G C
I want to hear your voice in my ear (X2)

A New Week, A New Day, A New Moment.... A New Season.

I love the morning so much it drives me to sleep at ridiculously early hours. I sacrifice movies, parties, and a bunch late night hang time to be able to beat the sun up. The bible says that there are new mercies every morning, and wise people have said, "Early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.  Those are not what have inspired me to rise early but because I do it just  supports my strangeness. There is something about the sun breaking through the darkness, something about a fresh start that puts the yesterday underneath you. I know I rant about the morning and how it inspires me often but it is not only a new morning, it is a new week. Last week carried many worries, although like most worries most never came to fruition. There seemed an endless amount of things to do and time seemed to be endlessly fleeting. When a friend and I talked about the stress of school, the emotional trauma that occurred during the break, and the giant deadlines that threatened to change our future, we came up with this picture. It is like you are tied to a treadmill that is cranked up just over the thresh hold level, just to fast to maintain. I love thresh hold training and workouts where you push your body right up to that breaking point but in life, not so much. Yes the hard stuff develops endurance, strength, and power like nothing else can but when it happens in life you don't see an end of the work out. there is no stop watch to pace off of, no defined finish line, or summit to the hill. When there is no end to  the speed  you begin to fall apart mentally as you anticipate the wall. The wall as runners know is when lactic acid and other wastes are flooding into your legs faster than your body can filter it out and all f the sudden you crash. Your legs feel like led or like you are running underwater. If you really push it your body will go into temporary paralysis. Most of us cannot push that hard because mentally we freak ourselves out before our body reaches that point.
 Last week was like running at just above thresh hold with no end in sight. My body was probably ok but my mind was tweekin. It is a new week! A fresh start and I have grown even from my experiences last week. I learned that when the eyes in your head cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel you are not allowed to freak out because we have faith. You turn to the eyes of your heart. One of the things that has been amazing me lately is the thought of Joy in Brokeness. Paul said, "Our heart break but we still have joy." It is all a perspective thing. Last week from my perspective I was going to crash and in turn I did. This week I have the same stressors but from a faith perspective all things will work together for the good of those who love him. (God) I read this morning I believe in Luke twelve some words that I need to remind myself of much more often. In summery: Do not worry about what you will eat or drink, God provides for the ravens and are you not worth much more than birds. Then do not worry about what you will wear, look at the flowers of the field and the grass, even Solomon in all his splendor could not compare. God open the eyes of my heart and let me see like that!
It is a new day, a new week, and a new season. Track training with the team starts today. I am inspired and ready to grow in my fitness and to lead my team! I know though that to lead even when you cannot see with the eyes in your head that the eyes of your heart need to be tuned in to what really matters.