Logocentric (adj).Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
I have always enjoyed the longer distance running and skiing. The Marathon in Summer Olympics and the 50km Mass Start in the Winter. My wife can't understand how I can watch the same race for several hours. But they are fascinating to me. I like the Downhill Slalom, Bobsled and Luge sports. Attending a Winter Olympics remains on my bucket list.
My favorite sporting events in the Winter Olympics are the Luge, Bobsled, Figure Skating and curling. Initially, I thought I would be bored with curling but I'm not. It's fascinating how they determine each glide's angle and potential score.
When my children were younger we built them a luge course, they loved it. We were lucky that winter to have lots of snow to build up the walls and with some help with pallets that we covered with snow, it kept them and the neighborhood kids busy until it warmed up and melted. I was a lot more at ease with the luge course than I was when they decided to try arial jumps off our house roof. Never a dull moment when you live in Maine.
I am reading ESV through the Bible this time. Like you, I've explored a bunch of translations. My church uses NIV but my women's Bible study group (part of the same church) varies based on what Bible study we're doing.
Hope you enjoy the Olympics! I agree that the every four year thing makes them feel more special.
I read the New American Bible, which is a Catholic Bible. (NABRE) They include Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, which generally aren't included in other versions of the Bible. I would be curious to read an orthodox bible or the Ethiopian Bible as I hear they have differences as well.
As for the Olympics, I love the Winter Olympics. I'm just crossing my fingers I have time to watch!
In terms of the original texts the NASB has the best reputation among conservative scholars. It looks at more translations, has a sensible hierarchy of text selection and the best principles for approaching the translation task. It favors original texts when possible. The ESV and NKJV are on a similar level. The Net Bible gives the best overview of the discussions in its commentary. The NIV renders the original text to make it more readable. It is a more functional text which is why many churches use it but it is also less precise. Greek or Russian orthodox are more Septuagint orientated and there is a considerable amount of ethical or emotional rendering to the text.The disadvantage of the NASB is that it loses much of the Hebrew poetical style in its effort to be precise as this does not translate into the English
I'm very fortunate to have met some practicing and humble Christians. Truly humble people seek to serve, not attain power and influence. The actions of many Christians make me run the opposite way... as fast as I can.
In his book, Sit, Walk, Stand, Watchman Nee states: "Nothing has done greater damage to our Christian testimony than our trying to be right and demanding right of others. We become preoccupied with what is and what is not right. We ask ourselves,' Have we been justly or unjustly treated?' and we think thus to vindicate our actions. But that is not our standard. The whole question for us is one of crossbearing".
Jeff, this is an excellent book. Perhaps one for your reading list?
It's been a while since I've posted here. Figured I owe everyone (especially myself) a little update in terms of what's been going on with me.
I started the year out really determined to be more productive with just about everything, and ended up falling flat on my face in pretty much all respects except work. The day job has been keeping me extraordinarily busy, but I'm still really loving it. The job is really challenging, but it's nice to have those challenges be the result of the really high expectations everyone has for our movies. We've got a premiere coming up Wednesday night of this week and I never really thought I'd be the kind of person who goes for that kind of thing, but the truth is that I enjoy them because they're a great way to commemorate the completion of a project. I've worked a lot of jobs where one project kind of rolls into the next without a lot of fanfare, so it's really nice to be able to go to an event where you can see all the hard work paying off.
My writing, unfortunately, has taken a real hit while I try to get my head around my job. I haven't written anything substantive in a really long time. This past weekend (Saturday) was the first time I finished a short story for a WDC contest in a long time and I really miss the feeling of finishing a piece of writing. I tried another short story on Sunday and didn't end up posting it because it didn't really turn out the way I was hoping. But the exercise taught me that I'm really out of practice when it comes to writing, and I need to get back on the horse so it's not such a struggle all the time.
This blog is part of that practice. I'm trying out a "writing sprint" idea I got from a self-published author I follow, who suggests very focused writing for short periods of time. You can write for as little as 5-10 minutes, or as much as 45-60 minutes depending on your schedule, but the idea is to turn off all your other distractions and not even focus so much on the technical aspects; the goal is just to get words on the page/screen as quickly as possible so you have something to work with. Then you rinse and repeat, doing as many writing sprints as you can handle each day, until you have a draft of something.
The idea of uninhibited writing is new to me, but so far I'm really liking the idea of churning out a bunch of words so that I have something to edit. I've always thought I'm better at molding and reshaping words that are already there rather than staring at a blank page and trying to will the perfect words into existence, so I'm going to give this method a try for a while. Which probably means there are going to be quite a few more blog entries like this, where they're a little rambling and a little steam-of-consciousness-y... on those days you'll know I wasn't able to schedule myself any dedicated writing time for my other stuff, so I showed up here to get at least one writing sprint in every day so I have some writing practice in.
And I'm at the ten minute mark as a I write this sentence, so I think it's time to call it a night.
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