This is just to get some thoughts out. 

     I had several most interesting dreams last night, though I only remember one sufficiently to detail any of it in writing.  It was similar to the movie Armageddon, or this old G.I. Joe comic, or even Final Fantasy 7.  I giant asteriod, I think perhaps about the size of our moon, was plunging towards the Earth.  When it hit, it was certain that all life here would be wiped out, and perhaps even our planet would be hit so hard that it would break apart!  I remember looking out of some window shortly before Earth's end, and musing that now, death was certain for us all.  However, there were also many other people around me, and they didn't seem so concerned about it.  Reminds me of Paul's statement that if Christ is not raised, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!"  So, very soon after that time, this asteroid hit.  Oddly enough, I got to see it hit, from space.  It was round, and when it hit Earth, the planet cracked pretty bad, but did not break apart.  Life was quickly extinguished.  (Naturally, in a dream, I was still "alive" to experience all this).  However, this was not the end of the story.  God was merciful to humanity and decided to restore life, according to certain fundamental principles of life.  I realize that sounds confusing, and I don't remember exactly what these principles were.  However, just as an example, a life principle is that of gender.  That is, masculine and feminine go far deeper into life, into the universe, that just biological male and female.  This is a fundamental aspect of life.  So, God recreated Earth on a couple of similar principles. 

     Even more odd, this whole chain of events happened twice before moving on to other dreams.  Then I woke up to get ready for work, and have these thoughts floating around in my head.  Thoughts of pain, suffering, death, people lost, hopeless, apathetic, with no purpose, even in the face of certain destruction.  I then had a new Zao song in my head, from their CD, The Funeral of God.  Which, for those who dont' know, is a concept album about a world in which God got so fed up with the way humanity treated him, abused and ignored him, that he just decided to get up and leave us.  Alone.  The resulting picture is, as one might imagine, quite bleak.  The particular song is called "The lesser lights of Heaven" and seems to be discussing the stars and their desire for their maker who has left them.  It went well with the whole asteroid thing.  That, and listening to this new David Crowder song haunted my thoughts for most of the morning.  Although the exact effects it had on me are difficult to describe.  Either way, being sincere and focused at work was difficult.  I was very distracted, thinking about all of these things.   

     Pain and struggle and what I call 'existential agony' often plague my mind.  People walk around, spiritual zombies!  They have no purpose in this life, only drifting from moment to moment...and so many not even in intellectual pride like many professors, but just poor, purposeless, and in pain.  As Ravi Zacharias relates in a story, to even try to listen to everybody's heart cry would be absolutely deafening!  I don't know how such suffering does not also burder other's hearts.  Perhaps they are too burdened with their own trials.  However, these issues are is interrupted by what I perceive to be much foolishness.  For example, this obsession with sports, Carolina, Duke, blah blah blah.  Who cares?  A bunch of guys are running back and forth and throwing a ball into a hoop.  I have come more and more to despise these things.  And yet people go fanatical for this.  I don't understand it.  Yet, people never cease to talk about this with great enthusiasm, indeed posessed by some spirit unbeknowst to me.  I won't start on some rant about how nobody is serious about their faith, etc, because I'm just as guilty.  But I do wonder where passion is, where purpose is, where we draw our battle lines, or do we even draw our lines for battle at all?  Do we get out of our church bubbles and go reach the world, reach the streets, go to the hurting with the gospel?  I don't, but I hate that.  I want to, I want to reach all those around me, I want to do spiritual war, the idea is enthralling!  Let us get out of this "Mist of the spirtual dimension", where "Satan has cursed thy mind." and "Awake, abandon mortal sin, truth thou shalt find!"

    Now I'm just rambling.  Enough for now.