The Staples Center

Did you know that many hospitals and doctor's offices don't uses stitches on the head? They use staples. I had heard of this before and always conjured up a mental picture of a doctor using a staple gun on your scalp. Now I know from experience that it is not quite like this, but it is close.

Today my roommate and I were goofing around when I banged my head on the corner of my desk. At first I thought, "That's gonna be a nasty bump." Then I saw that my hand has a bunch of blood on it.

Anyways, the long and short of it is that I had to go to urgent care so they could clean it out and staple it.

Other than staples in the head, today has been a good day. I am loving my classes so far this semester. Today I was reading Aristotle for Western Political Philosophy 1. Apparently Aristotle had caught on to the idea that everyone wants to be happy.

After that I read some of The Inspiration & Authority of Scripture by Rene Pache. He talks about man's inability to answer questions like "What will make me truly happy" and our need for divine revelation. God chose to communicate to us through His Word so that we might be able to know Him, and He is the best thing in the universe. How cool is that? Those are the kind of thoughts that will change the way I read the Bible tomorrow morning.

Watch out for desk corners. They're brutal.

Last Post as a Teenager

I will never blog again as a teenager because tomorrow I am turning 20. While many say that I will feel the same tomorrow as I do today, birthdays are still a reminder to me of the reality that I am getting older, whether I feel like it or not.

My twentieth birthday comes in the midst of my first year of classes during my sophomore year here at The Master’s College. For the last two weeks, my involvement on the school’s Servant Leadership Staff has kept me pretty busy, but I have had tons of fun and learned a lot in the process.

Two weeks ago, all of SLS went on a retreat to the flaming desert of Palm Springs. The retreat gave me the opportunity to get know guys on the Hotchkiss Dorm Staff better and was also full of good teaching, mainly from our Vice President of Student Life, Dr. Tatlock. The theme for the retreat was “Improving Your Serve,” and Tat’s teaching on the subject has really helped me as I think about the upcoming year. He said we often have a “one for you, two for me” attitude towards service, or maybe even an even “one for you, one for me” mindset if we are really spiritual. However, the Bible and the example of Jesus clearly show that a “all for you, none for me” attitude is required for true service. While talking with some guys at Chipotle after the retreat, we decided that life would be easier if we woke up in the morning and did not think about ourselves at all. As simple as it may sound, that is the basic idea of selflessness.

Last week was WOW week (yes, that is Week of Welcome week) here at TMC. The next year of TMC students arrived. I’m still getting used to not being in the youngest class here. One of the highlights of the week was definitely Hotchkiss (my dorm) winning The Master’s Cup—a big relay race amongst all the dorms. My golf team won a state championship in high school, but I don’t know if the competition was as intense or if the celebration was as spirited as it was that night. Hopefully there will be some pictures to come from that soon.

Now classes have started again, and I am having to readjust to this wonderful thing called homework. That might put a slight hitch in my blogging giddy-up, but I’ll try to post somewhat consistently. Until next time, think about this:

“Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning,
For in You do I trust;
Cause me to know the way in which I should walk,
For I lift up my soul to You.”
-Psalm 143:8

So Long Sweet Summer

3 months ago I was in my dorm room frantically throwing my stuff into plastic bags and then throwing those bags into my parent's CR-V so I wouldn't be late for work. Tonight I am collecting my things so I will be ready to move back into Hotchkiss tomorrow.

Summer is over. After working at a high school camp, I learned that that phrase can be taken many ways. The students all heard this phrase with dread, while the thought of returning to The Master's College frankly gets me psyched out of my mind.

Nevertheless, it has been another sweet summer. It has been my first summer living in California since 1994, so in some ways my whole summer was a vacation. I have been able to spend lots of time with my brothers & sisters (in-law/to-be). Just today I returned from a trip where I was able to hang out with Billy in Corona and then spend the night at Bobby and Christa's, where we watched a lot of West Wing episodes (some of the best episodes to ever hit the airwaves.)

My work situation turned out great this summer. I worked the whole summer in the mornings at The Master's College Fitness Center. This job gave me lots of time to read, blog, watch the World Cup, and keep up with everything going on in the world of sports and news. At the beginning of the summer, I was able to work on a political campaign. While the campaign trail was pretty crazy, it was a good learning experience.

But all that is over, and it's back to school. I'm really looking forward to this year. I'm looking forward to college life and hanging with friends. I'm looking forward to my classes. I'm looking forward to Generations (my Bible study.) I'm looking forward to keeping stats for TMC sports teams. I'm looking forward to blogging more than I did last year.

My blogging will probably change once school starts. I'm hoping to update it more often than last year, but this means that some of the posts might take on a bigger variety of topics and be shorter, but we'll see.

That's a full lid on my summer blogging.
Signing off-
Ben Blakey
Phil 1:21

Survival Camp

I once said, "[Survival Camp] is technically the summer camp of the high school group at First Baptist Church of Los Altos but effectively the best week of the summer or even year for anyone who attends." I attended twice as a camper and, needless to say, loved it both times. Along with remembering the fun I had and the friends I made, I remember Camp helping me to set the spiritual tone for my next school year. Survival Camp is awesome.

This year I had the chance to return to Sweet Home Lake Camanche--this time as a counselor. I had the joy of leading the guys on the Mexico team (the camp had a Latin American theme). Two competitive highlights for our team were winning the guys triathalon and skit night.

Once again, I really enjoyed camp. During Reflections on Friday night, I started to realize how glad I was that I had come to camp. Although my experience as a counselor was quite different from my times as a camper, I still enjoyed myself physically and spiritually.

I feel like I'll spend the next year digesting all that I learned at Survival Camp. I learned leadership both by experience and example. Leading a team brought on some new challenges for me and made me think about some new things. I was also able to learn from others as they served God through leading at the camp.

Daniel Tews spoke each night at the camp, and his lessons challenged me. On Tuesday night, he made everyone think about what they would want written on their tombstone. After going through the usual "Ben was a good guy" options, I started to think think that a comment like that would not be good enough. I need to be "good" in such a way that people will have to connect that goodness to Christ. I would much rather have "For to him, to live was Christ, and to die was gain" on my tombstone than "Ben was successful" or "Ben was a nice dude."

Survival Camp was a joy once again. I had fun, I was challenged by the Word, and I was able to watch God work in the lives of the campers. Now comes another year of remembering that God is the same during worship at Survival Camp, during my 8 o'clock class, forever.