Ok so I'm going to go ahead and admit that the blog has kinda sucked lately. I don't know what it is but I have been feeling very uninspired lately, although I've been reading a lot and trying to put a lot of information in this head of mine.
Today I spent a lot of time reading a book called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch. It's a book about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. I don't have a whole lot to write about it right now, but reading this book has really opened my eyes to a lot of things. I could try to write a blog about the inhumanity of this genocide, or about how ashamed I am to be an American after reading about how our country responded to this; but I honestly don't know where to start. Hopefully, later this week I can sit down and try to come up with something.
But right now all I want to do is recommend something that I read today off of Andrew Osenga's blog. It's about a very important issue of oppression, poverty, and injustice that is going on in the world. I think everyone should read it, especially if you are a follower of Jesus. Here it is:
http://www.andrewosenga.com/blog/2007/07/16/the-dalit/
Reading about the genocide in Rwanda has instilled in me a strong desire to do whatever I can to help people like this. There are so many situations, so many emergencies, happening in the world right now at this moment, and something has to be done. HIV/AIDs in Africa, oppression in India, poverty, hunger, orphaned children, war, sex trades, etc. These are all critical problems going on in the world today that must not be ignored, especially by the church. As followers of Jesus we must do as he commands by loving our neighbors, putting others first, and dying to ourselves daily.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Moving
It's been about two weeks since we moved back in with my dad in his house up in the Fork. Honestly, it doesn't even feel like it has been that long. The real surprise is that I have adjusted fairly well, except for the fact that I now have to add 15 minutes and a few extra gallons of gas to everywhere I go that is not Blount County. Still I thought I would take it harder than this.
I am an extremely sentimental person. If not for my practicality and realization that possessions with no use are well, useless; then I would hold onto everything that I could attach to some special person or memory.
This is kind of an embarrassing story, but I will tell it anyways. My dog Fuzzy died a few years ago, right before I was about to start college. We had that dog for at least 10 years, almost the whole time we were living in our house in Pinson. He was always a part of the scenery, the experience of being at home. When I was a kid he slept in my bed with me, and at times he was the only member of my family that I really liked. Probably because he couldn't talk. When I got home everyday he always barked and ran around in circles like dogs always seem to do. He pooped and peed in the house all the time, and he would lower his head and try to hide when he knew he was in trouble. Those were the good old days.
Fuzzy got hit by a car on the night of my dad's birthday. It was in the month of August, after I had graduated from high school. We buried him that night and I remember feeling absolutely horrible and kind of lost at the same time. But it didn't hit me until the next morning. My dad told me to get some rocks and a load of this red bark-stuff we had in a big pile in our yard. I was supposed to take it and sort of decorate Fuzzy's grave. Early in the morning I went outside and did that. I don't know what it was, I guess I just finally had the time to think about it all. When I came back inside I just lost it and I cried more than I had cried in a long, long time. It was overwhelming, but it wasn't just because I so suddenly lost a dog that had always been there. The most overwhelming part about it was the fact that Fuzzy was like a symbol of my childhood, and as sad as I was about my departed dog, I was even more sad about my fading youth. That month I would leave most of my friends behind and begin a year at Samford. I would step out of all the boring but oh-so-sweet summer days and into reality. No more playing videogames all day or just walking around getting lost in the woods with friends. Now life seemed to be about paychecks and grade point averages, even though life is not really about that stuff at all. I never wanted to lose the happiness and carelessness of my youth.
So now, 3 years later I am leaving that same home (along with Fuzzy's grave in the back yard) and I'm not really having much of a problem with it at all. I was praying about it the first night I got here and I just realized that home isn't really about a place. If anything, home is more about the people you are around, the things that you believe in, and the stuff that you do. In fact, I don't think anyone could ever truly feel at home here. I believe my true home is in another place. A place where God is.
Today I finished Donald Miller's book Through Painted Deserts, which really is an amazing book. It's about him and his friend Paul as they decided to take a road trip from Houston, Texas, to the Grand Canyon, and then to Oregon. They lived in a Volkswagen hippie van, ate mostly beans and rice, and many times slept outside. One of the main points that Donald Miller makes in this book, one of the things he learns on this "pilgrimage" is that you don't really need all that stuff that the world is telling you you need. You can be content with nothing in the world but a bowl of cereal and a good sunset. I really believe that, too. You really don't need a nice car or house. You don't need the American dream. You don't need any of it.
As I live out the rest of my life I am going to make sure I really do get caught up in it, whatever may be ahead of me. I believe that we all are being told God's story. You can see it in the sky at night, you can read it in the newspaper, you can find it in friendship, you can see it all over the place. Suddenly relocating to a new house doesn't seem like such a big deal, because it's really not a big deal. Life is always going to change. We are always going to change, but that's perfectly fine. I'm fine with that. And I really do hope that as God continues to work in my life that He will make me into that person who seeks out sunsets and starlit skies, not just the latest videogames and movies.
I am an extremely sentimental person. If not for my practicality and realization that possessions with no use are well, useless; then I would hold onto everything that I could attach to some special person or memory.
This is kind of an embarrassing story, but I will tell it anyways. My dog Fuzzy died a few years ago, right before I was about to start college. We had that dog for at least 10 years, almost the whole time we were living in our house in Pinson. He was always a part of the scenery, the experience of being at home. When I was a kid he slept in my bed with me, and at times he was the only member of my family that I really liked. Probably because he couldn't talk. When I got home everyday he always barked and ran around in circles like dogs always seem to do. He pooped and peed in the house all the time, and he would lower his head and try to hide when he knew he was in trouble. Those were the good old days.
Fuzzy got hit by a car on the night of my dad's birthday. It was in the month of August, after I had graduated from high school. We buried him that night and I remember feeling absolutely horrible and kind of lost at the same time. But it didn't hit me until the next morning. My dad told me to get some rocks and a load of this red bark-stuff we had in a big pile in our yard. I was supposed to take it and sort of decorate Fuzzy's grave. Early in the morning I went outside and did that. I don't know what it was, I guess I just finally had the time to think about it all. When I came back inside I just lost it and I cried more than I had cried in a long, long time. It was overwhelming, but it wasn't just because I so suddenly lost a dog that had always been there. The most overwhelming part about it was the fact that Fuzzy was like a symbol of my childhood, and as sad as I was about my departed dog, I was even more sad about my fading youth. That month I would leave most of my friends behind and begin a year at Samford. I would step out of all the boring but oh-so-sweet summer days and into reality. No more playing videogames all day or just walking around getting lost in the woods with friends. Now life seemed to be about paychecks and grade point averages, even though life is not really about that stuff at all. I never wanted to lose the happiness and carelessness of my youth.
So now, 3 years later I am leaving that same home (along with Fuzzy's grave in the back yard) and I'm not really having much of a problem with it at all. I was praying about it the first night I got here and I just realized that home isn't really about a place. If anything, home is more about the people you are around, the things that you believe in, and the stuff that you do. In fact, I don't think anyone could ever truly feel at home here. I believe my true home is in another place. A place where God is.
Today I finished Donald Miller's book Through Painted Deserts, which really is an amazing book. It's about him and his friend Paul as they decided to take a road trip from Houston, Texas, to the Grand Canyon, and then to Oregon. They lived in a Volkswagen hippie van, ate mostly beans and rice, and many times slept outside. One of the main points that Donald Miller makes in this book, one of the things he learns on this "pilgrimage" is that you don't really need all that stuff that the world is telling you you need. You can be content with nothing in the world but a bowl of cereal and a good sunset. I really believe that, too. You really don't need a nice car or house. You don't need the American dream. You don't need any of it.
As I live out the rest of my life I am going to make sure I really do get caught up in it, whatever may be ahead of me. I believe that we all are being told God's story. You can see it in the sky at night, you can read it in the newspaper, you can find it in friendship, you can see it all over the place. Suddenly relocating to a new house doesn't seem like such a big deal, because it's really not a big deal. Life is always going to change. We are always going to change, but that's perfectly fine. I'm fine with that. And I really do hope that as God continues to work in my life that He will make me into that person who seeks out sunsets and starlit skies, not just the latest videogames and movies.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Alabama Armpit
So it's pushing 100 degrees outside, it feels like an armpit, and of course our air conditioning went out today. I don't care, though. My goal is to not let affect me, since probably the majority of the world (including my friend Jeremy), is without central air anyways. This seems to happen every year, which leads to the question of the day: Is it impossible to permanently repair an air unit? Or are the a/c repairmen doing only enough to keep the air working for a while, so we will call them again when it breaks down and give them hundreds of dollars to get the air going again?
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