AKMA’s Random Thoughts

The often painful process of discerning who and what we are called to be and to do does not precede but must follow the even more painful process of discerning who we are not called to be, what we are not called to do.
It has parallels with the Baptismal vows of renunciation which necessarily precede the vows of affirmation. We have to say NO to some things, some persons, some relationships before we can say YES to those that really count.
Dick

AKMA, thank GOD you were at St. Luke's yesterday. You are among a dwindling minority of good folks left at St. Luke's who remain capable of discerning truth. The fact that you stood up to an inappropriate use of the pulpit is a mark of integrity. Please don't dust off your sandals just yet. We will need your help if there is ANY possible way to try to rebuild a very broken community.

Hmm. I think AKMA should tell us the whole story, or not blog it at all. If he means only insiders to know what he's talking about, why not use email ?

Timothy

As curious as we might be, Fr Adam is under no obligation to "tell us the whole story." This is his forum, and we are his guests; we have no standing to question how he runs it.

Chris is right BUT the whole thing leaves me guessing (and probably guessing wrong) about the missing parts.

And --during the liturgy??-- Aiyaiyai!!

I'm going to discuss some of this blog entry privately with you, Fr. AKMA, but I do want to say publicly that the way you continued with celebrating the mass was one of the bravest things I have ever seen at St. Luke's. It is so hard to keep going in the midst of heartbreak.

Dear AKMA,

I recently wrote the bishop to say that I thought that you were one of the few people in this parish who commanded everyone's respect and could provide leadership to help us move forward. I still believe that. You have abstained from being partisan and pointing fingers and have not withdrawn your participation in our corporate worship. You have preached hope at a time when we feel discouraged.

Compromise is part of life, and so is fairness and respect. Many people in our parish (and in other settings as well) see things as black and white, but life is not that simple. I am not sure who belongs at the middle of decision making, but I know that many people who belong there are discounted. We need to have opportunities to come together so that we can hear each other, as painful as that sometimes is and we need people who can facilitate this process fairly and even handedly. And sometimes we need to remind our appointed leadership of their appropriate role.

Myra Janus

May god fill your heart with love. May god fill your heart with peace. May god fill your heart with strength. May god fill your heart with courage. May god fill your heart with joy. May god fill your heart with hope.

Consider the miracle that your heart, filled with love, has room for joy; that your heart, filled with love and joy, has room for peace; that your heart, filled with love and joy and peace, has room for strength and courage, has room for hope.

Consider the miracle, that blessed with the grace of god, a heart filled with gladness and gratitude for the wonderful people who support you, you can still experience that sadness and that pain.

Breathe in. Breathe out. And walk in the love and support of those around you.

AKMA,

I obviously don't know the particulars of your parish's situation, but if you walk in the humble path of Christ in your parish life half as often as you do here in the blogosphere, I'd say St. Luke's is lucky to have you. I pray that the Lord be with you and your parish.

I too agree with others that the last great hope to save St. Luke's lies in your very capable and strong hands. This has gotten way out of hand and I see no way to save St. Luke's without someone as strong, Christ centered and caring as you are. I consider it an honor to hear you preach, I am confident that you would do the right thing, even if it meant going against the "majority." May God continue his blessings on you. I am so lucky to have met you, listened to you, been inspired by you and whatever happens here that memory will not be taken away from me.
God Bless you AKMA.

This variable is then used in various lines of code, holding values given it by variable assignments along the way. In the course of its life, a variable can hold any number of variables and be used in any number of different ways. This flexibility is built on the precept we just learned: a variable is really just a block of bits, and those bits can hold whatever data the program needs to remember. They can hold enough data to remember an integer from as low as -2,147,483,647 up to 2,147,483,647 (one less than plus or minus 2^31). They can remember one character of writing. They can keep a decimal number with a huge amount of precision and a giant range. They can hold a time accurate to the second in a range of centuries. A few bits is not to be scoffed at.

This will allow us to use a few functions we didn't have access to before. These lines are still a mystery for now, but we'll explain them soon. Now we'll start working within the main function, where favoriteNumber is declared and used. The first thing we need to do is change how we declare the variable. Instead of

We can see an example of this in our code we've written so far. In each function's block, we declare variables that hold our data. When each function ends, the variables within are disposed of, and the space they were using is given back to the computer to use. The variables live in the blocks of conditionals and loops we write, but they don't cascade into functions we call, because those aren't sub-blocks, but different sections of code entirely. Every variable we've written has a well-defined lifetime of one function.

Our next line looks familiar, except it starts with an asterisk. Again, we're using the star operator, and noting that this variable we're working with is a pointer. If we didn't, the computer would try to put the results of the right hand side of this statement (which evaluates to 6) into the pointer, overriding the value we need in the pointer, which is an address. This way, the computer knows to put the data not in the pointer, but into the place the pointer points to, which is in the Heap. So after this line, our int is living happily in the Heap, storing a value of 6, and our pointer tells us where that data is living.

When a variable is finished with it's work, it does not go into retirement, and it is never mentioned again. Variables simply cease to exist, and the thirty-two bits of data that they held is released, so that some other variable may later use them.

Let's see an example by converting our favoriteNumber variable from a stack variable to a heap variable. The first thing we'll do is find the project we've been working on and open it up in Project Builder. In the file, we'll start right at the top and work our way down. Under the line: