I just moved to a new place in Alexandria, Virginia -- one of my many 'homes' since college. Besides the number of shops on 'King Street,' the main street replete with a wide range of restaurants and ice cream and coffee shops, I'm very excited about the Gap Outlet store nearby!
I stayed in tonight thinking I would do a lot of work, but to no avail. Probably should hit up a coffee shop or just enjoy Friday night next time :) On a related note, I hope that I can find a good bible study/community group in the area soon!
Aigoo...
Friday, September 19, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
In The Washington Post today...
Joe Eszterhas
"My Base Instincts and God's Love"
Seven years ago, I sat down on a curb near my home, sobbing, and asked God to help me.
I had just had surgery for throat cancer. I still had a trache in my throat. I had been told that if I didn't stop smoking and drinking immediately, I'd die. I desperately didn't want to die. I adored my wife and children.
But I knew I couldn't stop. I'd started smoking when I was twelve and drinking when I was 14. I was now 57 years old.
I cried and begged God to help me . . . and He did. I hadn't prayed since I was a boy. I had made fun of God and those who loved God in my writings. And now, through my sobs, I heard myself asking God to help me . . . and from the moment I asked, He did.
I didn't at first understand why He did. I didn't deserve His help, I thought. I was unworthy. I ignore Him for forty years and then suddenly I ask Him to help me and He does? It took me some time to understand that God helped me because He loves me. Because even though we don't deserve God's love, God loves us - all of us.
Not only did He give me the strength to be able to defeat my addictions, He saved my life. My throat surgeon, Dr. Marshall Strome, told me seven years after the surgery that I am "cured." Not that I am in remission, but that I am cured. That my throat tissue has regenerated so remarkably that even a doctor examining my throat wouldn't be able to tell that there was ever cancer there. Dr. Strome, who had removed about eighty percent of my larynx, called this "a miracle."
I call it that, too. Why did God save the life of a man who had trashed, lampooned, and marginalized Him most of his life? Why did He take the time and the trouble to save me? It certainly wasn't because I had written Basic Instinct and Showgirls, right? Was it because my wife and I had four little boys we were trying to raise? Possibly.
Or was it God's divinely impish sense of humor? "Who, you? You're praying? After
everything you've done to break my commandments and after every nasty, unfunny thing you've written about Me and those who follow Me - now you're sobbing? Praying? Asking Me to help you? Hah! Okay, fine, I'll help you. But if I do, know this: My help will obliterate the old, infamous you. You'll wind up turning your life inside-out. You'll wind up stopping all of your excesses. You know what will happen to you? You'll wind up telling the world what I did for you. You'll wind up carrying my cross in church. Yes, I make all things new - and you will be new, too."
Well, I thought I heard God saying all those things to me . . . and then all of the things God said would happen . . . did. My life has turned inside-out. I have stopped my excesses and replaced them with prayer and long walks. I am carrying the cross as often as they'll let me at Holy Angels Church in Bainbridge Township, Ohio. And I have written a book as a thank-you to God. Not just for saving my life, but for saving me.
I am witness to and the beneficiary of God's love for all of us. Am I am witness, too, to the fact that His love is so strong that it was even able to open my rusty old closed heart.
I will thank Him forever because He gave me new life and a heart which is truly able to love for the first time in my life. His love is mine.
Joe Eszterhas is the author of a new memoir called "Crossbearer." He has written the screenplays for sixteen films, totaling over $1 billion in box office revenue. His blockbusters include Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge, Flashdance and Showgirls. A former senior editor at Rolling Stone, he is the author of five previous books - the second, "Charlie Simpson's Apocalypse," was nominated for the National Book Award.
"My Base Instincts and God's Love"
Seven years ago, I sat down on a curb near my home, sobbing, and asked God to help me.
I had just had surgery for throat cancer. I still had a trache in my throat. I had been told that if I didn't stop smoking and drinking immediately, I'd die. I desperately didn't want to die. I adored my wife and children.
But I knew I couldn't stop. I'd started smoking when I was twelve and drinking when I was 14. I was now 57 years old.
I cried and begged God to help me . . . and He did. I hadn't prayed since I was a boy. I had made fun of God and those who loved God in my writings. And now, through my sobs, I heard myself asking God to help me . . . and from the moment I asked, He did.
I didn't at first understand why He did. I didn't deserve His help, I thought. I was unworthy. I ignore Him for forty years and then suddenly I ask Him to help me and He does? It took me some time to understand that God helped me because He loves me. Because even though we don't deserve God's love, God loves us - all of us.
Not only did He give me the strength to be able to defeat my addictions, He saved my life. My throat surgeon, Dr. Marshall Strome, told me seven years after the surgery that I am "cured." Not that I am in remission, but that I am cured. That my throat tissue has regenerated so remarkably that even a doctor examining my throat wouldn't be able to tell that there was ever cancer there. Dr. Strome, who had removed about eighty percent of my larynx, called this "a miracle."
I call it that, too. Why did God save the life of a man who had trashed, lampooned, and marginalized Him most of his life? Why did He take the time and the trouble to save me? It certainly wasn't because I had written Basic Instinct and Showgirls, right? Was it because my wife and I had four little boys we were trying to raise? Possibly.
Or was it God's divinely impish sense of humor? "Who, you? You're praying? After
everything you've done to break my commandments and after every nasty, unfunny thing you've written about Me and those who follow Me - now you're sobbing? Praying? Asking Me to help you? Hah! Okay, fine, I'll help you. But if I do, know this: My help will obliterate the old, infamous you. You'll wind up turning your life inside-out. You'll wind up stopping all of your excesses. You know what will happen to you? You'll wind up telling the world what I did for you. You'll wind up carrying my cross in church. Yes, I make all things new - and you will be new, too."
Well, I thought I heard God saying all those things to me . . . and then all of the things God said would happen . . . did. My life has turned inside-out. I have stopped my excesses and replaced them with prayer and long walks. I am carrying the cross as often as they'll let me at Holy Angels Church in Bainbridge Township, Ohio. And I have written a book as a thank-you to God. Not just for saving my life, but for saving me.
I am witness to and the beneficiary of God's love for all of us. Am I am witness, too, to the fact that His love is so strong that it was even able to open my rusty old closed heart.
I will thank Him forever because He gave me new life and a heart which is truly able to love for the first time in my life. His love is mine.
Joe Eszterhas is the author of a new memoir called "Crossbearer." He has written the screenplays for sixteen films, totaling over $1 billion in box office revenue. His blockbusters include Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge, Flashdance and Showgirls. A former senior editor at Rolling Stone, he is the author of five previous books - the second, "Charlie Simpson's Apocalypse," was nominated for the National Book Award.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Poems
Ask Me
by William Stafford
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
Source: The Way It Is, New & Selected Poems
~~~~~~~~~
Thirst
Mary Oliver
Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.
Source: Thirst
by William Stafford
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
Source: The Way It Is, New & Selected Poems
~~~~~~~~~
Thirst
Mary Oliver
Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.
Source: Thirst
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Lecture by an old professor
Today, I had a chance to hear one of my former professors speak on the current state of Korean affairs. In many ways, hearing him speak brought many issues concerning Korea and international relations to a full circle...
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