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GeneralAtaris
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Name: Matt
Country: United States
State: South Carolina
Birthday: 10/19/1984
Gender: Male
Interests: Clemson Sports, Reading, etc
Expertise: History, Politics, New Testament, Philosophy, Logic, Christian Apologetics, Movies... lots of stuff...
Occupation: Student
Industry: Other
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  GeneralAtaris
Yahoo:  GeneralAtaris
Member Since:
1/14/2004
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| Well, school returns.
Time to get back to work.
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| I have returned, for no other reason than /for my own amusement and reflection. I've found that sometimes you just have to write.
So... where to start.
Let's see.
I guess I should start on a cold day in December 2007. Alissa and I were enjoying our first Christmas season in our new house when we got a shock... in the form of a positive pregnancy test. Alissa gave birth to our precious son, Jackson Calhoun Moore, on 8/8/08.
He is now almost five months old. He is my world, my passion... the culmination of everything I have worked, and will work for.
Last fall I also fell backwards into basketball coaching. I coached my middle school's team because, quite frankly, no one else would do it. The team had won only one game the previous season. Turns out... I'm sort of ok at coaching. We went 14-2 and won our region championship. Only a few months later I was hired as an assistant coach for Eastside High School. I'm also the JV head coach.
Life is hectic. My average day goes something like this:
Wake up at 6, feed Jackson. Work from 8-3:30. JV Basketball practice. Varsity bball practice. Home.
Game days are longer.
Life is changing at a rate I'm unsure if I'm comfortable with. People are growing older, including myself. Late nights aren't as fun, and I see more of my grandparents in my parents.... and more of my parents in myself.
There is a mortgage to pay, and hospital bills to worry about. Credit scores to consider. Retirement plans to contemplate.
Meanwhile important folks are leaving. My best friend from college is gone to Louisiana. My cousin and childhood best friend, Russ, is moving to Kentucky. My connections to childhood are disappearing. University grounds seem less comfortable and less familiar with each visit.
In my younger days I would wax nostalgic and discuss the paradoxical nature of looking forward to the future while dreading the loss of your past.
Now I see that the steady, grinding march of time is inevitable and unconditional. All there is to be done is appreciate where you've come from and understand that this life will go on with or without you.
Anyway... an "update?"
The update is that I, Matt Moore, who started this blog as a senior at Wade Hampton High School as a 17 year old idealist is now
-a husband
-a father
-a teacher
-a homeowner
-a coach
I'm posting this not out of some delusion that folks will still read it. I post this because, well...
sometimes it's good to write how your life has changed.... so you can take stock of it all.
I think I'm going to make this a semi-regular occurrence.
Anyway...a young man calls to me from the other room. Diaper duty awaits.
"Now I'm only 26,
feeling more like 43.
My hairline's dissapearing,
and I never get ID'd.
My clothes are out of fashion,
no I'm not cool anymore.
In the bed by ten o'clock each night,
and up at half past four."
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| Well, this is the end.
This really will be my last post on Xanga. Nobody read or posts anymore, and I'm really, really busy.
God Bless, folks.
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| I have always had a thing for Christian apologetics. I spend the better part of my high school career obsessing over the minuteae of apparent contradictions in the Bible. I wanted cold, hard facts that proved the authenticity of the gospels, or the resurrection story, or so on and so forth.
Yet as I've grown, I've come to realize that, to me, the most important signs of God come from intangibles.
Today I'm going to talk about the human need for forgiveness.
I have done a lot of very bad things in my life. I've been selfish, I've lied, I've done harm to my body and my mind... I could go on. My college years were a roller coaster ride of substance abuse and selfishness. I always try to flee the feeling of guilt, to hide from God. There have been times where I've gone entire months or even years where I was able to hide. But eventually the conviction catches up with me. Its not just guilt. It is an inherent, innate need for forgiveness. My questions is this: "If there is no God, no objective moral standard to which we compare ourselves, why do we feel the need to cleanse ourselves of wrongdoing?" How is it that if we do something wrong, and it hurts no one but ourselves, we still feel the need to confess to someone?
Even when we don't feel sorry, we know often times we should. As Aaron Weiss, lead singer of mewithoutYou, said, "I ask your forgiveness for my lack of faithfulness in asking your forgiveness. I'm sorry that I am so seldom sorry."
I have fallen so many times in my life, and in my faith. I have hurt people I love, and God himself. The world around me, the pleasures in it, have all at some point become empty to me. The only hope for me, for the world, is the unending grace of God. Humans are so terribly flawed. We all have addictions and shortcomings. This world is not worth living in unless there is a divine intervention of forgiveness on our behalf. Which is why I believe.
My prayer tonight: "God, help me to ask forgiveness, and to forgive. Help me to not hide from you."
"After years with a crown on my head,
I've grown overfed-
unconcerned and comfortably numb.
Kept busy,
indulging in the pleasures of the wealthy
(Oh, someone make me afraid of what I've become.)
At the first sign of possible sorrows,
I turn my heels and run
(Oh, I'll never learn)
My life's a cup of sugar I borrowed,
before time began and forgot to return."
-mewithoutYou
"January 1979"
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| Well, I lied.
What has been going on with my life?
I graduated from college. I am officially a Clemson graduate, and starting in August, an 8th grade Language Arts Teacher at Northwood Middle School.
Alissa and I bought a new car, a 2006 Toyota Corolla. Oh, yeah... and I got married. I'm loving married life.
I need ideas on things to post. So... give em to me.
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