The Billionty-Oneth Geek: Older Than 8 Since 1991

“If you want to enjoy life and see many happy days, keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies.  Turn away from evil and do good.  Search for peace, and work to maintain it .  The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil.” -1 Peter 3:10-12 (NLT) I’ve been thinking a lot about this piece of scripture since I read it a few weeks back.  Something about the way that the scripture speaks of peace just really resonated with me. To me, peace is something that I’ve never really given a thought about.  If I had to boil it down to a process, there’s a moment when you hit peace, you realize it, you pump your fist and you carry on.  Or at least, that’s the way I’ve always perceived it. The scripture says that we must “work to maintain it”.  It may sound nerdy, but I started thinking about the science behind ‘work’.  ...

It has been nearly a year since the last time I've posted to this topic!  Wow, the letters that myself and Matt have exchanged have been queued up.  I wish that I could fast-forward to what we've been talking about now, but alas, it can wait.  The following letters were originally written in Fall of 2011, so a while back!  That's pre-Gangnam Style!  Much has changed since then.  But please enjoy the conversation. If you're missing out on past letters, you can find part 1 ( here ), part 2 ( here ) and part 3 ( here ). My response letter to Matt: Hey Matt, I have to do a big rewind, I need to get on top of this as I feel it was a meaty discussion!  It’s been many months since our last correspondence on this topic, with different discussions sure to sprawl. I already addressed your first paragraph in person, but let me rephrase/re-explain.  What I meant was that I wouldn’t want to do anything on my own sort of accord, independently fro...

The other night, our church hosted a small gathering that was dubbed, “Theology on Tap”.  The idea was to head to a pub, somewhere casual and just talk theology.   Some points of discussion included the simplicity of God and also the grandness of God or the “Godness of God”, as our pastor quipped.  One person remarked that despite the grandness and infiniteness of God, that you, as a finite being, still matter. During the discussion, I was trying to process some points and understand things in terms of geek analogies. I started wondering if God sees the world in full high definition 1080p, and at the bare minimum, with a  refresh rate of 60 Hz.  At the same time, how each of us is like a single pixel on that globally expansive LED screen.  Our job as a pixel is simple; we are called to emit a light.  The light you emit can be of various colours and although you may be just a single pixel emitting a certain colour at a certain time, co...

Last summer, during my trip to Costa Rica, me and a few tour-mates went on a canyoneering/rappelling adventure tour. It was a beautiful experience; traversing along a stream in a mountain and rappelling down when the cliffs were too high. It was the first time I’ve ever done rappelling and it was a thrilling experience. In very non-technical terms, in rappelling, you descend cliffs with a rope attached to your harness, gripping and releasing the rope with your hands as you lower yourself down. But you’re not alone. At the bottom of the cliff is your spotter, who holds the end of the rope, and who controls your speed. So at the highest cliff of this tour, I was 60 meters above the ground below and had to leap, relying on the spotter below to keep me from pancaking at the bottom. My life depended on the spotter. The other night, I was sharing prayer requests with a friend. His request was for wisdom on how to rely on God more and to understand that He has a plan for him. As he wa...

Welcome to the 3rd edition of of Gaming and God. A lot has happened between now and when we exchanged the below emails (which has approximately a 9 month gap... :). Since then, Matt has moved on from our church community ( here ) in Toronto to settle down more at home, in his hometown of Hamilton. He's living happily and finding new ways to serve God closer to home. Try as it may, but distance can't hamper the relationship of two gamers! I was telling a friend this past weekend about our continued correspondence, and how it's special for me because I have few friends that share a similar upbringing as Matt and I, who grew up gaming and respecting it to a point of discussion. We've continued to exchange our letters to each other on gaming and how it is in our lives. It's sort of interesting reading these emails in retrospect. It's only been a few months, yet so much has changed. If you want some context, you can find part 1 of the series ( here ) and part 2 ( he...

I was reading The Blackest Night the other week, and man, it was great! Imagine a “zombie” story involving the whole DC universe (admittedly, I haven’t read Marvel’s Zombies)! The Blackest Night was the big DC crossover story of 2009-2010, that basically told a story of dead superheroes and villains rising. It was a captivating story filled with some “oh shit!”-shock moments coupled with frightening moments. Though the story focuses more around the Green Lantern and the Green Lantern Corps, I couldn’t help but think about the Flash, who plays a significant role in the story. I had a dream that week about the Flash and his qualities as a superhero, and how it related to me. It was a strange dream, yet one where I was able to find some wisdom. (Note: it doesn’t happen often, but I have a history of superheroes ending up in my dreams. For the record, appearing in separate dreams have been Superman, Batman, Iron Man, Ice Man, Spider-Man and now the Flash. I guess inside, I want to be more...

Hey friends! So originally I meant to release these over the course of a few weeks, but I guess out of laze, I fell behind. Anyhow, as a quick recap, these are letters that I have been exchanging with one of my pastors regarding gaming, being a Christian and seeking something more. You will probably need some context if this is new to you. You can see part 1 of our exchange ( here ). Without further ado, here is the latest exchange (although not really latest, these were originally sent back in December). My Response Letter to Matt: Hey Matt, So as I mentioned last time, it’s tough to make a fitting argument against the time issue. And as I progress more into the working life, arguing against it becomes weaker, futile even. The time I have to game these days, seems rare and short if at all. As I already mentioned a few weeks ago, there was a Saturday morning where I woke up early to finish the Riddler challenges in Batman: Arkham Asylum . They were repetitive, and ...

So originally this was part of the post that I put up last week, but when I started reading the rough draft, I realized that the whole thing sounded disjointed because the two trains of thought were loosely tied together. Well, I separated the two so hopefully the two thoughts are more coherent now. I was reading 1 Thessalonians the other week, and there’s one line, though a short line, that really resonated with me. There’s so much wisdom within the fewest words sometimes. It’s at the beginning of chapter 3, where Paul talks about having sent Timothy to the church of Thessalonica, to encourage and strengthen the people there. He wasn’t sent there to do or complete any certain physical task, but he was sent there just to be a spiritual boost, to give them a 1-up mushroom if you will. His “job” was to encourage people. How crazy is that? How many people do you know in your life whose job is to solely encourage people? That would fly around the country just to encourage? This go...

You know sometimes when you write things and they sound fine as you’re writing them, but as your read your own words afterwards, how they might come across differently? Well, I re-read yesterday’s post this morning and totally got that feeling. Specifically when I wrote: “With this in mind, whether God grants you your dreams or not, if you have this very type of hope within you, do those plans or dreams even matter?”. It makes it sound as though your own dreams don’t matter, and that’s not what I was trying to say. I mean, that is a bit harsh! Especially myself, as a big dreamer; always gazing at the skies. But y’know, I put a question mark there at the end, because it’s a legitimate question I have with God. It’s nothing definitive or directive, just something I’ve been wondering about. How do our dreams play into His plan, if even at all? Maybe it’s like in Inception , where an idea that’s Inception’d, becomes this great source of motivation and inspiration, one that could cha...

For the past few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about the idea of the Bible as the upside-down gospel, as described by one of my pastors last year. It revolves around the idea of irony, how many stories told within the Bible are based on backwards thinking - turning the whole thing upside down, if you will. When cursed, you bless. To be last, is to be first. To be poor, is to be rich. To be level 4 gnome healer, is to be level 85 dungeon raid leader. Well, I'm sure that last one will appear in the new edition of the Bible someday. But you get my point, we are to be opposite from the way the world would want us to be. A life lived in irony, since we're not living for the world. So I was thinking about things in my life right now and the direction I wanted life to go. A life of uncertainty, where every dream in the seas of opportunity are anchored to question marks. But that I guess, is the inherent problem with all this, I was thinking about the things that *I* want in ...

So before we get to the meat of the matter, I thought I'd just give you a little background on how this all came about. For the past few months, me and my friend Matt have been having a back and forth conversation (some parts in person and some parts through email) regarding gaming and being Christians. Matt, legitimately one of the nicest guys I know, who besides being a father, a friend, and a "former gamer", is the associate pastor at the church I go to. And I say "former gamer" because he sold his Xbox 360 this past year leaving his home devoid of any gaming consoles (at least current gen?). However, if a great game does come out and if time permits, he indulges at a friend or relatives house. Also good to note, we both have similar gaming upbringings; that being the heavy influence of the 8-bit and 16-bit era, and in particular, Japanese RPGs of yesteryear. Anyhow, it all started a few month ago when we started talking about gaming in general, but more s...