Quotes below courtesy of Boundless:
http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001523.cfm
http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001528.cfm
Our world finds godliness boring and purity unattractive. I think before he sinned, Adam found it a turn-on. As Christians, shouldn't we experience it that way too? I don't mean you should lust after the godly girls in your church! I simply mean that if God is the standard of beauty, then the more of God you see in them, the more you see that is attractive.
But if the physical or personal is entirely (or mainly) what attracts you and these are your highest priorities, then your problem is not with the women around you. Your problem is with God. The more you are in love with the beauty of Jesus Christ, the more you will be attracted to what you see of Him in the woman you're dating and the more important it will be to you. The less you love Him, the more important other things about her will become, things like her figure or style.
Romans 1:18-22 talks about how God revealed Himself and His beauty and man rejected it. We rejected His standard for women and the beauty He has set upon you. Adam screwed it up, but Jesus redeemed beauty from the world of sin, picked it up off the ground, and washed it clean.
Think about what that means. Jesus didn't come to earth looking for a beautiful bride, going back to heaven disappointed because no one lived up to His standards. No, He worked actively creating beauty through His death on the cross and the power of the gospel. He gave His life so that whoever repents of their sin and puts their faith in His finished work on the cross might become part of His dazzlingly beautiful bride! It's a promise He made and it's a promise He will keep.
Jesus created a dazzling, beautiful bride! He spent His entire life to demonstrate the beauty of God and beauty from God. From Ephesians 5:25-27, we are called to love, honor, and cherish you ladies, just as Christ did! With our entire lives. A tough standard. Just as Jesus worked to reveal the authentic beauty He treasures, so we are called to as well.
Ladies:
I pray that the men in your life, including myself, will be invested with the power of God to live up to that standard, for it is only with His power that we can reform our idea of female beauty, just as it is only through His power that you can reform your ideas of yours. I pray that those around you will cherish the incorruptible beauty you have in your heart and strengthen and protect that beauty.
There could never be a more beautiful you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXSkd8apbWM (Lyrics at http://www.jonnydiaz.com/?p=77)
Gentlemen:
May we take this message to heart and show the ladies around us that there is a better definition of beauty, and that we believe in it. May we devote our lives to creating beauty, cherishing it, and protecting it in those around us.
Happy Valentine's Day,
Parker
Bungie's first video documentary on the production of Halo: Reach. Really cool stuff.
A detailed discussion of the financial bailout and the role of Kenneth Feinberg, the "pay czar", from the New York Times back in January.
Generating clicks means the media will keep generating stories.
I agree with everything said in this article about health care reform except the argument against cutting Medicaid.
I will add an eleventh idea of increasing the number of primary care physicians and nurse practitioners. While reforming health care may help turn this trend around, it is unlikely in and of itself.
Somebody pays this guy money? Jim Kosek on Snowpocalypse.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
— Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 14 ed. (1968). Attributed to Edmund Burke (1729 -1797).
Official snowfall total from snowpocalypse part II: 16.9 inches.
Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport has recorded more than 6 feet, 7 inches of snow so far this winter, with more on the way.
While updating some Latex for the JHU ACM, I wondered if it would be possible to put an image file with our logo on it in the title page. Turns out, someone wondered the same thing and eventually created the titlepic package in 2008. Its use is really easy:
\titlepic{\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{cover.jpg}}It's got a couple options for customization, and there's a solution in the comments on http://typethinker.blogspot.com/2008/08/picture-on-title-page-in-latex.html for putting your picture above the title, as I did.
\maketitle
An editorial from WSJ on Apple's "strategy" to lock players into the iTunes store by preventing Flash content.
While there are technical reasons for Apple's stance against Flash (see a previous blog post), this is certainly a valid theory, even if I don't yet believe it. If it's true, it's certainly a good business model.