Gossip Response

by: PJ Wong

In response to Mike’s recent gossip, I am outraged on many levels.
The highest level is of course the fact that I can’t believe that gossip has such a high regard in a so called Bible believing community. I really expected more out of you people, especially those in the counseling program, Upper Lehman, 4th room, above Christina Fisher, orange hair, glasses, drives a Hyundai and is totally going to be owned on December the 23rd of this year. This person will remain nameless due to the fact that I refuse to stoop down to that level.
When teaching about gossip, I think of a bag of flour. Each word is a sprinkle on the floor and each phrase is a handful cast upon the ground. And I think it’s about time to clean this mess up.
So in response to the recent allegations, I would like to set the story straight.
First of all, Mr. Boogerman and I were not meeting up for a wedding at all. I had invited him over for some coffee, along with a good friend for many years—Agatha. I had just brought out the game “Don’t Wake Up Daddy” and we were enjoying our reading week.
We had been playing for a few minutes when daddy sprung up from his bed. As Aggie jumped backwards, Booger was right there to save the day. Needless to say, Aggie fell back and found herself in the arms of a dashingly handsome young man. It was love at first sight.
The ordination part is true. I do weddings, bar-mitzvahs, bat-mitzvahs, Yiddish-mich-sche-vahs and the occasional Peruvian chimpanzee sacrifices. So knowing this, Ben asked me to do the deed. I was honoured.
The two set off for the honeymoon when Agatha, happy with her service, offered me a tip. As an honest man I refused but she insisted, telling me that it was a slap in the face to turn her down. I regretfully said yes, due to the fact of my outstanding student fines that are not yet paid. (Don’t worry Marjorie; I plan on paying off every penny with my damage deposit this coming spring.)
Long story short, the fling ended as Aggie found a new love - Daniel Cook. She pursued Dan in New Hampshire and the two have been no where to be found to this day. I hear that the two along with Jamie Knight, Bethany Wiebe, and Jordan Vetro are on an Bavarian cruise in search of the man eating behemoth spoken of in Spanish legend—Matt Cardases.
By the way, did you hear that Mike Salvatore really isn’t getting married? Yep. It’s really a scam to get our presents. He’s hired expert sharp shooter Brittany Rice to shoot down everyone who comes into the dining room. Little does he know, Mary has actually had a secret agenda since day one as well—star hit-men Dave King and Simon Boucher! Together, the three will take Salvatore out so she can run off with his automobile. But keep that one on the down low… just between us… okay?

Injustice - Part 2 of 3

by: Curtis Healy

You truly shouldn't have to pay for an education. You need to put your time into it. You need to work hard, but it shouldn't just be you supporting yourself; it should be the community supporting each other. I think it is a huge disgrace, especially at EBC that we have to let people leave because they can't afford the schooling they need to become more rounded in what they are blessed to become. That we have to pay to become fully actualized instruments of God.

It is shameful that we should have to pay for a piece of paper that has nothing to do with the mission of Christ so that we can be recognized and better accepted and have greater potential to be hired by a church. It is a shame that anyone has to pay to become what God, out of his good grace has granted to both Christian and non alike, an image of their path in life, and what they're supposed to be. Yes they need to work hard at it, but they shouldn't have to pay money to let someone recognize 'officially' what God has ordained them to be. But it truly goes to show, that the Church also, God bless her, has some things to work out, like comparing how enriching this God person will be with a graduate enriching the community alongside a certificate.

This is the problem facing some new friends of mine wondering if they should be here, because evidently the school doesn't deem them worthy of a certificate. It’s really a paradox saying 'based on the standards and requirements of the world, even the law, you do not measure up to be able to serve God a particular way.' It takes no account for how someone actually ministers and blesses etc, whether in a Christian environment or not. And it says ‘you are not valued for your enrichment or your blessing, or your spirit, maybe not even your knowledge but your ability to perform’. This is one more fancy way of saying 'Your ability to contribute to economy'. If you don’t have a $40 000 piece of paper, you're less economic to the church. How wonderful; where is the Spirit of God accounted for in all of this?

I find it odd that we are so worried about our church attendances and our pitches for evangelism these days. I don't in any way see how being satisfied with attendance or worrying about it is important. We should be concerned with what they leave with, not necessarily what they come with. They come with the same as us. But rather, we're worried about people showing up rather than the image of Christ we present. If we presented the image of Jesus correctly, it wouldn’t matter to us; people would come for the ingenuousness of the people filled with the Holy Spirit. I think we should adopt an Alice Cooper quote on this matter 'If God tells us to have a telefundraiser with a mark of say $200 000, he's not concerned about us actually making our mark, but the image of Christ we portray while raising the money.' Maybe we should be less concerned about numbers and more concerned about the number one? Because in the idea of 'get your slip' they're not looking at ‘how does this person bring Christ?’ They're looking at ‘how can this person liven up things?’ Or ‘do they have the quantitative capitalist requirements to economize our environment?’ Paper slips can cover a whole multitude of error and sin that have nothing to do with good ministry. But the attitude of the injustice isn't limited to the quest for the certificate.

You might say, ‘well I have no time for this’, or ‘my struggles are my own’ etc. Well then you don't have time to be a human being. And you don't understand the meaning of struggle or pain. They do not exist so we can sit back with pride and exemption and see where others have less, and justify ourselves or even our behaviors at delineated with them. Struggle and difficulty - suffering exists to bind us together in commonality. Pain exists to be healed and we are to lead people to the Master Healer, who has healed us.

The Lazed, the Glazed and the Sloth

Why Reading Break is no longer necessary
by: Jordan Vetro

I write here today to make a plea to the school to deter from a deadly and harmful tradition that is ruining the minds of our students and encouraging irresponsibility and laziness. This is the reading week. Hundreds of students who would benefit from another solid week of school work, are ripped from their studies and allowed to be idle and carefree. They call it reading break, but the uncultured and uneducated have taken this thing and skewered it beyond recognition until it is an outlet for a need for decadence and sloth.
How can one trust students to dedicate themselves to their work? How can one expect that a week without classes will encourage dedication and hard work when students are not under the careful and caring eye of “Big Brother”?
'Nay' I say, 'Nay and nay again!' We must not be so careless as to give these students a chance to develop a lack of dedication which will carry over into their later school work.
In days of old, they were more dedicated. Students were not given the chance to be lazy. They knew what was at stake. Today's students have lost sight of such priorities, and we need drastic change. It includes such helpful tools as sea rations, scheduled nights sleep, and most important, the demise of reading break.
As a student, I feel it my duty to inform the faculty, whose duty it is to devote themselves to our academic progression, that reading break must be canceled post-haste.
And I believe it should not simply stop there. Reading break is not the only faulty aspect of our system which must be mended.
Summer break is no longer a chance for students to work; it has become a virus, an infection that plagues our students with ill thought and lazy action.
Weekends also, useless breaks simply for the purpose of drawing students away from their priorities.
Very true statistics show that at least 78.930383% of students at our school agree that we henceforth dispose of all opportunities to divert us from our studies*.
The Aye's have it, and the people have decided. We shall remain in class permanently, taking short breaks for nourishment and trips to the lavatory, and we shall all be happier, more intelligent, and more blessed than we ever were before.
And how might you ask have I discovered the truth as to the true nature of a break which we all believed was beneficial to our education and helpful to our sanity? I did nothing! Zero Productivity! I spent more time in the bathroom then I spent being productive.
And honestly, who worries about people's sanity anymore?

*footnote: Statistics are not very true or even mostly true. In fact, there has circulated some doubt that they are even true at all.

The Wrongfully Accused Speak Out

Why I Punched Jordan Vetro
by: Simon Boucher

Well, after reading as article describing something of EBC nightlife that had something to do with physical aggression, I heard that it might be a good idea to write some sort of response, and so I thought I’d give it a shot.
Jordan is right;
in a fit of anger and rage I hit him a few weeks ago...
I'd just walked into the common lounge where he and a few girls were talking when I overheard him getting a little loud and boisterous (I think you might know what I mean). He was saying that a girl could never dance or juggle as well as he could, in fact (and his face got serious here) that a girl could 'never do anything as well as he could.' . . .
He then went on to insult every minority between here and southern California, while the girls and I stood with mouths open and, I admit, a trickle of a tear running down our cheeks.
It was then that I jumped him with an anger purer than driven snow, reigning down blows for justice, happiness and democracy. 'That kind of stuff may float for the crowds on vaudeville but not around here,' I thought as I turned to walk out of the room- and the smiles on the girls’ faces and the warmth in the air reminded me that once again justice had found and defeated the oppressor that so often plagues first-years.

(I guess it’s here that I should write more about that problem but I’m not sure I should tell you if you’re not sure what it might be).

But nevertheless, girls of EBC, beware of the immaturity that threatens to control the minds and even the creative energy of boys everywhere- and no matter if he's artistic and witty- beware of boys with round glasses and poise,
even is he writes articles for the paper, and makes libel noise.
Don’t be afraid to haul off and deck some boys.
Maybe all boys. The truth is, there’s something in the air that might warrant it, and hey you can maybe take a shot at a lanky fourth year.

Injustice - Part 1 of 3

by: Curtis Healy

Two people I know and love who once went to EBC are struggling to complete their dreams and perpetuate their flesh. The problem is that they can't both perpetuate their flesh and support their dreams. They conflict because of the very real and unfortunate financial necessities of our society (and most advanced societies). They have to survive and so they can't get the education they need to become what's in their blood and on their hearts. And because they need to survive, it becomes a very precarious situation of what will win out: the needs of the body to exist versus the needs of the spirit to exist with abundance and vigour.

Three other people who currently go to EBC, whom I'm very much learning to appreciate, may not even be returning next semester – one because she may not have the money. The other two because they're having difficulty with their assignments and no one will really come along side them, and of course there may also be money issues; I'm not completely sure. The fact of the matter is that situation number one is the same as situation number two. And it’s ridiculous.

This is of course chalked up to the harsh reality we live in. “This is reality,” we say, and in reality you need money to survive, to make something of ourselves and to support ourselves and our families and communities. I'm not too convinced of that. In ancient cultures (and even in our Western cultures), the scholars were appreciated and supported by the community because they enriched it with wisdom, leadership, direction, blessing, care and knowledge. Here we are forced to support ourselves, which is no bad or evil thing, but we are not valued because we enrich community; we are valued because we contribute to the economy. We're valued, but not supported, because of how we can enrich and progress consumerism. We're valued because we can inject new life into the consumption of production. A sticker went around last year that read “The more you consume the more you die.” I'm inclined to agree.

I don't see how people can look around and not become indignant about such things. How they can simply shrug this off, excuse it and accept it as what it is and not rebel against it? It used to be enough in this country to “be a hard worker” and you'd make something of yourself in whatever you did. That's not the case anymore and we submit to this as a mandatory feature of the reality we live in – we just have to deal with it. We acquiesce to this injustice that the body must exist at the expense of the dream. What good is the body if its dream must remain thoughts? It’s injustice. We see those who had to support themselves over their dreams, or had to abandon them. The things God has made them to be they attempted, but were never able to do it because of this place. We accept its injustice and simply say “c’est la vie” or “that's how the cookie crumbles”; they have to deal with it the same as we have to deal with ours. Where is Jesus in that attitude?

We might be those who have had to give up on some dreams, or those still struggling. But really, we can't accept this. It's injustice and I for one don't care that “this is just the world we live in”. This kind of world is unacceptable and needs to change. I'm not talking about being lazy. I'm well aware of the need for work. But not work to survive, work to satisfy and support one another - work in community, work that is done in a meaningful way. Not just to receive a pay check, but a harvest. Bottom line, I'm talking about education that can be done at a free pace, where you can be helped so you know what you're doing and have every opportunity. Not some system of “OK sit down, take your test. Now I take your test, mark it. Oh, you failed. Oh, you didn't do so well. Here – it’s your problem.”