ME Studios

It's not about me

God in seeking his glory seeks the good of his creatures, because the emanation of his glory . . . implies the . . . happiness of his creatures. And in communicating his fullness for them, he does it for himself, because their good, which he seeks, is so much in union and communion with himself. God is their good. Their excellency and happiness is nothing but the emanation and expression of God's glory. God, in seeking their glory and happiness, seeks himself, and in seeking himself, i.e. himself diffused . . . he seeks their glory and happiness.

Thus it is easy to conceive how God should seek the good of the creature . . . even his happiness, from a supreme regard to himself; as his happiness arises from . . . the creature's exercising a supreme regard to God . . . in beholding God's glory, in esteeming and loving it, and rejoicing in it.

God's respect to the creature's good, and his respect to himself, is not a divided respect; but both are united in one, as the happiness of the creature aimed at is happiness in union with himself.

-Jonathan Edwards

The Ipod Shuffle

I have been an admirer of ipods for some time. As much as I tried I could not come up with a practical reason to convince my wife to allow me to shell out the $300 to purchase one of the 20 gig models. Truthfully, I could never quite convince myself either. I always thought it would be far too much ipod for what I would really use.

Enter ipod shuffle. Perfect. A modest price. (100-150) Exceptionally cool size (the size of a pack of gum) and more than enough storage capacity (512mb 1g) for what I would need.

My sweet and wonderful wife bought me the 512mb version for Valentines Day/Birthday. I have been avidly using it for the past two weeks and have enjoyed it immensely. I will outline a few high and low points.

HIGHS

- I love the size. I have taken it running a few times and it fits nicely in my hand or pocket. I plan on getting the optional armband soon for ease of use. It is virtually weightless in my pocket, but difficult to switch songs while running. The armband will fix that problem.

- The neck lanyard is amazingly handy. I thought it was kind of goofy at first but hardly go with out it most days. Multitasking is now possible. The ipod hangs just below my chest and makes it easy to reach up and switch songs, pause, etc. If you dont want the neck lanyard, you can just switch the caps out, simple.

- Shuffle mode is great. I enjoy the random factor. If I dont want to shuffle the songs I just toggle to the continuous mode. Back Controls

- Auto fill. Very cool. Auto fill is a feature in itunes. If selected it randomly grabs songs from your whole itunes library and fills your ipod with random selections. It gets me out of the rut of listening to the same thing over and over.

- File storage ability. I have gown accustomed to only filling half the ipod with songs. The other half I save for files I might need to transport from work to home or visa-versa. Very handy.

LOWS

- USB connection. Being the only charging and syncing method for the shuffle, My computer (apple emac) has inaccessible USB ports. I could not plug my ipod shuffle into it directly. I tried the USB connection on my keyboard but was informed it did not have enough power. I had to run down to Staples and purchase a $18 USB extender cable.

- The ipod shuffle took about 4 weeks to get here.

Well, That's it. Not a very complete review I know but feel free to ask any questions or address something I did not cover.

Are You Grieved?

“The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church... grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil.” - Leonard Ravenhill