Sam’s Blog

I was told by someone that a smile expresses more than any sentence that they or anyone could ever speak.

The last couple of days have been ones of rest for me. Because of my overambitious nature, I've found myself doing and being everywhere at once. What am I trying to accomplish or achieve in midst of working, I don't know. I think while moving sometimes. If I sit still and think, I'll wont act till its logically thought out. And sometimes that can be my handicap. And that's what been happening. I've gotten the honorable privilege to enjoy a full night sleep with meals. But when awake man, I've been thinking through a lot of things. Like, " How is Barack going to fix this economic pit that we Americans have happily jumped in on account of someone else's credit?, Brooklyn, Philly, or Israel?, How is the writer/artist supposed to make money nowadays? Why am I not doing what I love the most?

After attending one of my church history classes, I was escorted to my mailbox, accompanied by the words of a red-haired student (JENNA YOU A BEAST SON!!!!), that there was a special treat awaiting my arrival. It was brownies son. But not any old brownies, these joints was snicker snack bar brownies obese with white, milk chocolate, and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Man that made my day son. So, it must be true, smile says much more than words. This is the sweetest smile.

JOY. A smile that only a mother could love.

P.S. I thought I might smile at couple of folks. People tend to pin me as over-critical and serious and that I about am business too much and never smile. So who knows? Maybe this year, I can smile someone into going to the Spring formal with me. ha! HA!

http://www.zshare.net/video/5636845751d7bc6b/

Posted by Sam Cornet at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What is the human spirit and what is it’s relation to the various art forms that humans choose to use for expression?

Artists create a picture of what life is and what life should be. This being true reminds us that every artist expresses their ideals {worldview(s)} of the world through their art. This is why I love art history. Not only do we study about the techniques of the artist, but also the perspectives that artists are convicted by.

The truth about the arts is that one expresses the common emotions of humanity. The beautiful reality of life is that every individual's experience with human emotions are different based on personality and cultural makeup. So how does anger, love, hate, jealousy, sadness, happiness look from people in ancient past, or even presently all over the world? How does the society in which people live in effect their emotions and thus inspire the expressions of that emotion.

This again, is why studying art history is a joy to me. It is to learn about how different people have struggled throughout the ages to be human, struggles that I share. What and where is this standard that everyone is trying to live by or explain away?

This is where an individual artist shines, where he/she gives his own experience and interpretation of his emotions and experience. But what does it look like when those experiences or emotions are filtered through a mentality that has experienced redemption? Imagine that? What does the redemption of art look like for the believer, who is foreshadowing a coming reality of the restoration of the universe through their artistic creations? (Is not this whole goal of the Created order. That it reflects God and His perspectives, character, and genius?)

This is why I create. This is what I hope to practice through the arts, as an educator.

He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help- Abraham Lincoln

Rock on Lincoln, Rock On.

Posted by Sam Cornet at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Should artists be forced to create? What excites creativity? How does the individual human spirit find its form of expression to uniquely communicate its perspective on the common experience of life, shared by all? Aren't we all artists? ......

Instructed to write, we do. Given a time limit, we race to deliver. Time's up, we review, correct and in our heads recite. Our name is called, we preform. Audience responded, we are relieved. This is the life cycle of an artist....

Click, screams the keyboard. Click, click, the keyboards screams under the demands of the fingers. Long skinny fingers, at that, at that. They don’t carry much weight anyway, yet the blows still hurt. Each key, begging that the writer would ignore it, when crossing off the intended targets off of his mental alphabetical list.

Two minutes left! screams the professor. The Professor is keeping watch of the time, in order to properly instruct the class of undergraduates. “Deadline!� screams the professor, making out the expression of the face of the clock. While the clock smiles, Tick, tick, tick.
- I.

I pull my coat tighter around me. Everywhere i look there is ice, white ice, black ice, blocks of ice, water ice, just ice! Broken glass lies before my eyes everywhere on the sidewalk.
Cold. My buttons are gone. When i got into that fight this morning they ripped my coat. The sun is going down and the wind is picking up. The sky is red and orange. Gosh, how i miss
the blue. Now it's all gray. My fingers are numb.

I put my hands in my pockets as i walk past the old abandoned buildings on my left and my right. I can hear the train passing over the bridge and the faint cries of an ambulance going west on 21st street. My old block. I look up to see an empty parking lot , right outside the Stadium Armory. My mother used to have parties there, but not anymore. I'm still walking. I'm still cold.

My shoes hit the pavement as cautiously as possible, making sure not to slip. I hear the crunching of the ice as i draw near to my destination. There are no more cars to be seen from here. Only the distant smell of old mechanic oil and dirty alleyways. Now it's dark. Pitch Black. I'm here.
- her.

It was as if God laid a white blanket tucking in the concrete from the cold wind. I saw the two walking as they normally do. Nothing strange. Nothing awkward. Dialogue, unforced. Life, hm, directed. We the images of Creator are forced to create. Or better yet invent by instruction. I mean what portrait can we create that the All knowing Almighty God hasn't already seen with his time-less insight. So we create or invent. Cause we are made to do so. Not simply with portraits but even decisions. Sovereignty does not violate free will. Somehow...I dont know, that's why He is God. Live. Eat. Burp. Be. Walk.... No problem. Matter fact, preferred. Cars... who needs them...for now. In the mean time, steer to the the side of the streets. We pedestrians run the streets now. Random. Maybe. Maybe not. Life as a work of art. Definitely. Mos Definitely.

Posted by Sam Cornet at 3:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

AMEN!!! I BELIEVE, IN THE NAME OF JESUS! HMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! drool......

Man, I dare you to tell me what else can make a grown smile! Look at his face. LOOK AT IT!!!! Yeah...didn't think so.

Man. I didnt shake the camera at all. That's how fast she was shaking his face. It stayed like that for the rest of the night. Fo' real.

Love. What else to say.

Posted by Sam Cornet at 3:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Understand PBU’s commitment to biblical integration.

It’s the teachers, administrators, and then it’s the subjects that must be redeemed.

“Where the truth is, in so far as it is truth, there God is.�- Miguel de Cervantes

“So what is PBU here to do for me?� thinks the prospective student. Don’t worry; I am not offended at all. Your sarcastic screams are heard through your screen for all to see. But I can’t answer your question. I still haven’t figured that one out for myself. I know what you are thinking. “Bring me some one who knows how to write directly!� That’s completely fine and fair. Your point is completely valid, but so is the one I’m trying to make. Think of this entry like this. I am doing exactly what is outlined above. I am merely clarifying the situation without exposing the answers. That is your job. This is the quest you are to embark on during college. What does the educated individual look like? Is he/she draped in a cap and gown? Is your knowledge passed on to you near the podium of an auditorium stage? I don’t know yet, but know this is true; YOU are the factor that determines the quality of your college education.

You are here to become the educated individual right? You have come to the right place. You are here to become competent citizens of society who serve Christ by serving the church and society right? You are in the right place. Here is what anyone on the admissions team wont tell you (I love them peeps so much. Shout to Gaynell Hill, the one that got me in here!!! Chea!!!). No one at PBU will be able to EXACTLY define what the educated individual is. That is YOUR job. PBU teachers and administrators simply model the educated individual.

But what is the educated individual? Especially when it comes to a redeemed one? Well, the educated individual, according to the classical sense, is one who is committed to study and is the expert in his field of expertise. Here lies the dilemma that awaits everyone who attends Bible colleges and seminaries. How does one become astute in the revelation of God? How does one know God? How does one know someone who has existed outside of time and never has been born and will never die? He has no history to study; God, a being, who is simplistic in His complexity. See, with education, one is talking about mere subject matter that has a history. Something that is somewhat documented. These are truths readily accessible to anyone who can read. But this reality remains untrue when one journeys to study God. This is your plight Christian student, may God sustain the theologian.

We are not dealing with subject matter. We are dealing with a personality. God is… self sufficient, self-existent, and infinitely incomprehensible. Humans are… dependent, and finite. We, humans exist as created beings dependent on God for His revelation. We are even dependent on the ability to even understand God’s revelation. And because of the belief in the truth, that our natures are corrupt by immorality, and therefore, we are ignorant of the functions and goal of the universe and the character of its Creator, we are convicted that we are helpless and are in need of a Savior. We Christians, who are firm believers in the revelation of the Bible and its divine accuracy, believe that God has spoken to lost humanity throughout history. We believe that God has spoken to us about the universe and its functions through His revelations throughout history and “in these last days has spoken to us by His Son� the complete and ultimate revelation of God- Jesus Christ. God is the logical starting point for all meaningful thoughts and statements of fact. Why is this so? “In the beginning God created the heavens and earth� (Gen 1:1). So since all of the academic disciplines are discovered truths about the universe that God has made, then how does a believer in these truths stated above become educated in a subject like math? Especially, in the biblical sense when the bible calls true knowledge wisdom. To result of knowing is not merely shown through proclamation but through a practical lifestyle. So does PBU change its definition of education and knowledge? How do you grade wisdom? Who is really learning knowledge? Where is this educated student?

Well, whatever educational philosophy a student develops comes from a teacher. Teachers are somewhat of the answer to the question stated above. Teachers model to every student in the classroom, the knowledge of the subject matter that should convict and inspire. Though they impart information, they also impart their own lives over to students who are just beginning their own. Teachers are reference guides to finding the student’s future self. So for the redemption of the educated student to take place, he/she has to learn from the worldview or framework of a redeemed educational institution (for those at secular schools this is where the church community helps), for the redemption of academic subject matter, which are the lost truths of the universe’s functions and order, there must be the redeemed teacher. Basically, by teacher I mean, spiritually mature believers, who teach as their profession, are the beginning of an answer to finding the true educated individual that the student hopes to be. This is what Christ modeled to humanity. The Word became flesh. Christ's incarnation was a teaching moment to world. In essence, the incomprehensible nature of God was completely summed up with simplistic complexity and present in the form of man. What was incompletely unknowable was now able to be looked at. What was incomprehensible was now open to touch, sight and to be heard. Christ showed us how to be humans, which was impossible because of the fall. Christ not only model human life but He made human life possible to live by His atoning death on the cross and resurrection to life.

That is the responsibility of teachers. Teachers are meant to take truths about God and His universe and simplify the form without comprising the nature of the content. Teachers are meant to inspire us on our journeys to knowing God by walking ahead first. They are to model to us the truth that their journey to enlightenment did not end with a degree and ours wont. They model the ethics and morals that God will hold us accountable to. They are the citizens that we hope to be. They are the students of life that we love to hear stories from. They are by God’s grace, the survivors of ignorance.

There is no Christian university without Christians in it. We forget that PEOPLE make up what all of society is and not institutions-in this case it is PBU, as a Christian college. Maturing believers, are the ones who make Philadelphia Biblical University biblical. It is not the title that makes this university what it is. It is the people. The redemption of education does not happen behind the desk, on paper, or on the blackboard. It happens when one comes to the knowledge of a saving God who has chosen to extend mercy instead of wrath, by allowing someone to believe in the person and work of Jesus Christ who revealed the means and the ends of the universe-the glory of God. The redemption of the educated mathematician is not mere knowledge of formulas and the ability to count cumulative grades but one who knows how to budget and manages a checkbook, in order to be a good steward of the financial blessings that God has given him. In any subject, be it theology or science, the truly educated student knows that the knowledge about ordered universe, is a valuable tool to helping him function as a creature for the glory of God. This is why we study the order of God’s revelation (The Holy Bible) along with the academic subjects of education. For humanity will never share omniscience (The ability to know all things) with God. And God created us with that favor in mind. That restrictive boundary is not oppressive but liberating allowing us to learn about and rejoice in, the complexity of God and His world forever. May we live to learn and may we learn to live. May we love to learn and may we learn to love. Learning is something no one can do for us. Not even God.

“The end of all learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge is to love and intimate Him� John Milton.

So where do we start as students? Stay tuned

Line Dancing Part 2

I put you down while still holding you up with my pointing finger around you and my thumbs pressed on you. I remember when this hold felt weird once. Hmm, even today my style is unorthodox to some. They prefer the right hand, I move with the left. I remember that this hold was hard for me to maintain back then. I never danced before and these types of dances were organized in conjunction with thoughts. Thoughts I did not have. Thoughts I only heard from other dancers, but never could I move with my own. Among peers, we were taught 25 of these dances and all of them had to be learned to the letter. There were dances that went in straight lines and ones that had circles. Not to mention the ones that had both. They told us the only way to learn these dances were to do them. Thinking about them would come later but for now, practice was the only means of measuring progress. All of these dances could stand alone as symbols, but the jingled order helped us memorize the moves. We would sing it while dancing and if we missed a beat we had to start all over again.

My first partner was a breaker. She had light pink hair with an aluminum headband with No. 2 tattooed to her throat. Man, she could break easily. She would spin on her head at times, cleaning the mistakes we scuffed into Mead’s floor. She would never mind her hair getting dirty, she just loved to practice with me. I remember her yellow skinny body pressed upon my hands as we moved. I remember her bones leaving my skin sore after moving so long. And even after hours of practice, I could still see the transparent mistakes I made with her on the dance floor, which tended to make me self-conscious. But among the ghostly scuffs which lay lazily on the floor, haunting me, I saw the pink remains of her hair before I swept it off of Mead’s floor. She didn’t mind my mess ups on the circles and my inability to put the right combination of dances on the floor. She loved the practice, said it just sharpened her up. Little did she know, that helped me to get to this point........

Posted by Sam Cornet at 2:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)