11:10 PST
Spent morning planning 1st month. More or less booked everything. 1 week each in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Boise for ~$80-$280 less than 1 month rent here. Variance depends on if I stay with [Asa] in Seattle. On my way to get passport photo [followed by] lunch at my favorite Thai place, Tamarind.
Spent unused credit card reward points on an iPod nano and iTunes credit. Bought a Chromebook for transit and future reservations.
Giving up video games will be hard.
Going to get rid of most or all of my clothes as I don’t think they can be salvaged. Jewish oriented celebration tonight at [church]. Will probably spend the evening cleaning up apartment and throwing stuff out. Hopefully tell landlord tomorrow, [nurse] next week.
12:16 – 15:00 PST
Lunch at Tamarind. Been considering possible patreon for journey. [Nurse] called during lunch, meeting her at ~2:30 PM. Dropped off key for [bookstore friends].
Got an hour to myself so may as well write about the whys and all that.
My life has had two or three major turning points so far. The first came when I was 17 and I had the option of going to my dream college (which would not have provided a marketable degree) at considerable debt, or move to Utah with a friend I had met via gaming. Either way, I felt I had to leave my mother, and being debt averse, settled on Utah. I moved in July 2006.
The second point I might count would be in the late summer of 2007. The economy was on a downturn and the retail company I worked for (and liked!) began blaming employees for not working hard enough. I could’ve been the youngest General Manager in the company (19 in September of that year) but enlisted with the Marine Corps in August. I did thorough research and had conflicted motivations, but I did it. I shipped for boot camp towards the end of October.
The final (or rather, most recent) major turning point is when, due to what was officially classified a manic episode, I was forced to retire from the Marine Corps (despite having planned on becoming a career officer). The episode occurred in February 2010. I was transferred to San DIego and spent a year as part of the Wounded Warrior Battalion N[aval]M[edical]C[enter]S[an]D[iego] detachment before being fully released as a civilian in March 2011.
My episode had spiritual/religious dimensions that were repressed until I got out. I stumbled into a spiritual father and spent 2011-2014 in various degrees of spiritual and organizational commitment. From 2011 to July 2012, I visited the psych ward four additional times, got put into a more intensive care management program with the V[eteran’s]A[dministration] and had my disability rating increased.
I lost or fell out of touch with a lot of old friends and Marines I had served with. I spent most of my social time with people old enough to be my parents or grandparents.
As often happens, the more blessed and well off I was, the less I [intrinsically, as demonstrated by my actions] thought I needed YHWH and Yeshua. After my roommate left in June 2014, I began playing a bunch of video games, and embarrassingly, succumbed to the temptation of pornography.
School had been an easy excuse to remain tied down in my current quarters. I hadn’t seriously applied myself to a course in a long time and flunked quite a few [due to varying degrees of apathy which may or may not have been related to my illness and the treatment of it]. I hadn’t had paying work since December 2011 and hadn’t really figured out what to do with my life.
One of my earliest dreams had always been to write a novel. When I enlisted, the headspace for my novel had been repurposed for Marine Corps lore, history, ethos and skills. When I had my episode, my creativity and inspiration seemingly evaporated during treatment. When I had the chance to participate in NaNoWriMo Nov 2014, I didn’t do it because I was too involved playing video games.
So, it was time for a change. I might trick myself into thinking video games are fun, but they aren’t fulfilling in the same way a profession or spiritual lifestyle are. I am also a bit of a nomad at heart and want to travel. So, here we are.
18:45 PST
Service starts in 15m. Spent some time with [Bob] and caught up as well as explained various perspectives.
Cello music playing, supposedly not much teaching to happen. People trickling in. Realizing it’s been maybe 4 months and people may not recognize me without the beard and in a dress shirt and sports jacket. Too fat to fit in the tailored pants anymore.
19:15 PST [Editor’s note: These are kind of abbreviated notes to cover what happened in the service. I’ve manually expanded them a bit to help readers.]
KICKING OFF. 2nd Heaven and Earth passing away, we are not – 3rd [Heaven and Earth are to come]. Beginning of coronations to the King. Desires Pure Ones (Puritans). Turn off [natural] senses, [turn on] spiritual senses (worship in spirit – John 4). Isaiah 6, 9, 11, 61(?). Dance [to be] done in silence, very little sound to hear the King. [The Kingdom of Heaven is] now, Yeshua didn’t make appointments or ask people to come back… Live the Kingdom of Heaven now.
(MY JOURNEY – JOHN 1:23, ISAIAH 40:3-5(-8)) … 1/1/2015 <-> 10 Tevet 5775, [anniversary of Babylonian siege of Jerusalem on 10 Tevet 3336, some 2,239 years earlier – a day of fasting and mourning, not celebration!]
20:19 PST
[Eric] Word of “the LORD:” Isaiah 41
[Member 1]: Ezekiel 37:15-28
[Member 2]: 1 Chronicles 12:23 -> Zedach ministers to YHWH first, overflow to others
[Member 3]: Revelations 3:1-6
[Pastor]: Revelations 12:5-12
[Member 4]: Revelations 20:1-10,
[Ryan]: Isaiah 35
[Member 5]: John 3:16, Hebrews 3:7-4:12
[Bob]: Closing benediction; 1 Peter 4
Wrap-up around 21:30 PST
Following the Way 