Odds and ends

The joy of blogging is that it offers the opportunity to express your thoughts on particular matters with others and thereby join a broader discussion. On the one hand, it does not require the discipline and rigor of the academy, although it is not generally helpful to offer observations or make arguments which are not relevant, sound, or based upon some kind of evidence, and on the other hand, it is also not driven by someone else's agenda. Another way of putting it is that you get to say what you want to say, according to your own self-imposed standards, on the topic of your choice, and in the form, detail, and length you choose to express your ideas. If others choose to listen in and join your conversation either to critique, enrich, affirm, or seek further clarification, they are free to do so, but are under no compulsion. In short, it means the blogger has a lot of latitude; he or she is driven by things of interest to him/her.

Where is this all going? Well, what I am ramping up to say, is that I plan to start offering a wide range of topics to throw out for discussion. Beginning today and from here on out, until I change, get bored, or I hear many calls for a change in the course of action, I will contribute my thoughts on a wider range of issues. I will keep posting my thoughts on things of interest in the MMA world and random anecdotes of interest found in the media as I have in the past, but I plan to post on a whole new range of things. For instance, I plan to start offering a summary of the texts I am preaching on each week. Right now I am working through 1st Corinthians, so I will post up a few paragraphs about what I understand the basic meaning of a particular text is which I am currently looking at and try to begin to offer some idea of the "so what?" question that the text addresses to concerns we have today. I will also post my outline notes on the Book of Romans, that basically consist of a summary of John Murray's comments taken from his commentary on Romans. Beyond that I will make an attempt to discuss the readings from the monthly study I lead on Calvin's Institutes. I meet with a group of men once per month on Thursday evenings to discuss a pre-assigned portion of the Institutes as a way to interact with the men of my church and of course with any visitors who would like to attend. At other times, you may come to the blog and find me talking about a range of bewildering topics relating to rhetorical theory and criticism. Currently I am a graduate student in Human Communications at CSU Fullerton. Human Communications (HCOM everafter) is basically the study of messages; how are they constructed, what influences shaped them, who are they addressed to, what affect do they intend, why was this message communicated to a particular audience at this particular time and occasion, and so forth and so on. It is a very broad field and a number of brilliant people ply their skill to the trade of interpreting communication texts (BTW a text is any piece of communication whether that be a speech, a photo, work of art, song, TV show, movie, etc) from an array of angle's, some more helpful, others mystifying and nearly incomprehensible, and some flat out nutty. At any rate, I would like to include you in my reflection on such things and engage your thinking in order to receive interaction, input, and critique from you.

I probably have left something out that I want to tell you I plan to address, but that is ok, because part of the intrigue will be experiencing what the wise ol Forest Gump once said, "life is like a box of chocolates and you never know what your going to get." Hopefully, in a good way, that is what you will experience when you check things out here.

That being said, I hope you come back frequently, I encourage you to tell your friends and neighbors to stop by, and please, by all means, interact. I want to hear from you and I want to learn from you too.

Thanks for stopping by Calvin On Tap