My Favorite Albums of 2009

So I know it's been a while since I've posted anything. Tradition called for me to post this and when tradition calls, I answer. Here ya go.

5. Thrice - Beggars

It seems like anytime Thrice puts a new album out they are guaranteed a spot on this list. Beggars didn't release with the fanfare that The Alchemy Index did, but it turned out to be a pretty great album. Thrice moved away from the more electronic elements found in TAI and Vheissu. Still, all the songs are well written both musically and lyrically.

Best songs:

In Exile

Circles

The Weight

Wood and Wire

4. The Fray - The Fray

Yeah, I know, it's The Fray. I didn't become a fan until this year. I didn't listen to much of their previous album, but I picked up the new self-titled and I gotta say it's a good listen.

Best songs:

Absolute

Say When

Ungodly Hour

3. Relient K - Forget and Not Slow Down

This is shaping up to be one of my favorite Relient K albums they've released. It definitely strays away from their punk rock sound, but you can still listen to it and tell it's Relient K. It's a more creative and mature album than they have ever released, which compares more to Mmhmm than any other. Also, there are no cheesy, made-for-radio style songs that ought to be skipped on a regular playthrough.

Best songs:

I Don't Need a Soul

Therapy

Over It

2. Derek Webb - Stockholm Syndrome

Two albums stood out above all others this year. Stockholm Syndrome is one of them. It's great to see an artist out there really taking a stand for the things that he believes, especially when it might not be a popular stand, and Derek Webb does exactly that. He even had to release two separate copies of the album (one "edited" copy leaves out a controversial track called What Matters More). The real genius of this music is in its message. With compelling lyrics and cool, techno-style beats, this is definitely one of Derek Webb's best.

Best songs:

Cobra Con

What Matters More

The State/The Proverbial Gun

Jena and Jimmy

1. Brand New - Daisy

Ever since The Devil and God are Raging Inside of Me, Brand New has been one of my favorite bands. I was glad to see that they continued with their darker, more mature sound with Daisy. Still one of the most intense and dynamic bands I know, Brand New's music has become more compelling and interesting than any other. And the religious references in Jesse's lyrics are really cool:

"There's too many saviors on my cross again, I know I'll never be a perfect man."

"I don't think that you've got to pretend, I see God in birds and Satan in long words."

"If everyone's a structure where their own savior sits, then I'm a little red house and no one's living in it."

So many good lines. I love this album. Love it.

Best songs:

At the Bottom

Sink

Bought a Bridet

Beggars

by Thrice

All you great men of power, you who boast of your feats -
Politicians and entrepreneurs.
Can you safeguard your breath in the night while you sleep?
Keep your heart beating steady and sure?
As you lie in your bed, does the thought haunt your head
That you’re really, rather small?
If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all.

All you champions of science and rulers of men,
Can you summon the sun from its sleep?
Does the earth seek your counsel on how fast to spin?
Can you shut up the gates of the deep?
Don’t you know that all things hang, as if by a string,
O’er the darkness - poised to fall?
If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all.

All you big shots that swagger and stride with conceit,
Did you devise how your frame would be formed?
If you’d be raised in a palace, or live out in the streets,
Did you choose the place or the hour you’d be born?
Tell me what can you claim? Not a thing - not your name!
Tell me if you can recall just one thing,
That’s not a gift in this life?

Can you hear what’s been said?
Can you see now that everything’s grace after all?
If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all.

I just love this band.

Asimo takes a tumble

Here's a little good old Japanese hubris for you.



These videos never get old to me. My astronomy professor said the other day that in 20 years, robots will be able to out-think human beings. I don't believe that. Sure, they may be able to do math problems better and quicker. But I don't believe any robot will ever create for instance, a beautiful painting or song. I don't think a robot could write a poem or inspire an audience with a speech.

But of course, they won't need any of that when they rise up and enslave the human race. So I guess this is not important.

Roll freakin' tide

There is nothing like going from the possible worst outcome of a situation to the best outcome in a matter of seconds.

It was my first Alabama game. Ever. And with less than a minute in the game to go, it felt like it might have been one of the most disappointing experiences of my life. After Mark Ingram fumbled for the first time in his career, after Tennessee drove the ball down the field and scored the only touchdown of the game, and after they recovered their onside kick, here we were about to see our undefeated season be taken away from us. And by the freakin' Tennessee Volunteers at that, the team I hate more than any other with the head coach that I already hate more than any other.

Then, after that snap and after the ball was kicked, I watched as the ball was knocked down. I heard the thud with my own ears, and watched as the ball sailed off in the other direction. And then maybe one of the best feelings of my life, a feeling that was part disbelief, part joy, and part adrenaline rush that no combination of energy drinks could ever match, hit me and the rest of the Crimson Tide fans as we went nuts in the stands. It was a swell of emotion that is rarely matched. We were still undefeated, still in the NCAA title race, and best of all, we didn't give Volunteer nation the satisfaction of tarnishing our undefeated record in our house.

I am so glad I was there (thank you Kevin and Aimee!), and I'm so glad that I got to be part of the yelling, the clapping, the Rammer Jammer-ing. I'm glad I got to give out hugs and high fives after the game, and enjoy the heart-pounding ending that made a mediocre game one that will be remembered for a long time. I will never forget this for the rest of my life.

Yep, today was a good day.

I love this picture

My Miracle Drug

The mind can be a poison. Sometimes I wish I could turn mine off. I wish it had a switch that I could flip off when I needed to, when my thoughts turned negative, or simply when I needed to enjoy a Vin Diesel movie.

This morning I missed class because all my work pants were in the washing machine still soaking wet. When I found them it was too late to dry them and then leave, so I put them in the dryer and tried to make use of the extra time. I already didn't feel very well since it was Monday, but I grabbed my notebook, went out on the back porch, and started looking over my algebra work in a patio chair. It was nice outside, sunny but cool. I went over factoring, absolute values, and inequalities making sure I had the process down in my head for figuring out each type of problem. After about 10 minutes of that my mind started to wander and in my head I was far away from that porch and that notebook with the math problems.

I thought about my life and, just like my mind does sometimes, I seemed to pick out all the times I've failed and remind myself just what kind of stupid things I'm capable of. Funny how the bad things always stick out over the good things, like they somehow carry more weight to define us as people. I don't really believe that but I thought about all the relationships in my life that aren't what I'd like them to be, the length of time it's taking me to earn my degree, and all my various character flaws. I thought about how my goal, my ambition, is to become a teacher. But even when I did that I doubted if I could really do it.

Do you really even want to be a teacher? I don't think you want it bad enough, you probably won't even graduate. And even if you do, you'll probably hate it. And you probably won't even be very good at it. And by the way, you are majoring in history, so you might not even find a job.

It wasn't a very good morning for me. Instead of actually studying, I spent a lot of my time wondering if what I was working for was really worth it. I paced around the house, half-bored but not wanting to waste the hours I was gaining from missing class. I stared out of windows, only to walk to the other side of the house and stare out of another window. My mind was in a bad place and I just felt lost.

I even walked outside onto the porch where our dogs were. Bilco was laying on his back with his feet up against the wall. He has a knack for making himself look like he has the IQ of a gnat. I looked at our old German shepherd, Foster, who is 16 years old now and looks every bit of it. He looked up at me but didn't wag his tail. Several years ago he got hit by a car and broke his hind leg. Now that he is older, he has arthritis and that leg is almost useless to him. I watched him try to stand up. He propped himself up with his front two legs and then tried to lift the rest of his body with only one leg. He got about halfway up, straining the whole time, and then gave up. He eased himself back down. Every minute or so he would try and eventually he got up and limped down the stairs to where he could lay under some shade.

He laid down and as I was watching him I started thinking about getting old. I wondered if the right thing to do would be to put Foster out of his misery, but I knew I could never decide to do that. He only had one life to live - might as well leave him to enjoy all of it.

I say this because I felt crazy this morning. Between the doubting, the staring out of windows, and my old dog who reminded me that even though I'm 23 I am still going to grow old and die one day, I didn't feel sane. I felt like I should feel better than I did, not standing around wondering about my future or the philosophical consequences of euthanizing a dog.

I have been through clinical depression before, a few years ago when I was a student at UAB. It was easily the worst few months of my life. I didn't have any enemy that could harm me as bad as my mind did. It was hell. Last year I read an article that said J.K. Rowling's dementors were based on her experiences with depression. She described it as "that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad." I very much agree.

The only way I coped with it was to pray and write. In fact, I looked forward to nothing at all except the end of the day when I would shut myself in my room, turn on some older Andrew Osenga music, and write down my thoughts for an hour or two. I found that if I could get out my thoughts by writing them down on paper, I had a lot more success in dealing with them. In fact, I could look them over and see that I was often being irrational and extremely unfair to myself. If I talked about anybody else the way I talked about myself, I would be an enormous jerk. It was at that time in my life, that dark time, that I learned that I could make it through hell as long as I was able to write it down.

One of my many favorite U2 songs is called Miracle Drug. I have a live recording of them playing the song in Chicago on their Vertigo tour. As Edge starts playing the opening guitar riff, Bono says this:

"I fell in love in Chicago. I fell in love in a hotel room in Chicago, listening to Miles Davis, Kind of Blue. I didn't understand Jazz, I didn't understand Miles Davis or how his music could make me feel until, sitting in this hotel room looking out the window at this city, an Irish boy 24 years old. Just looking around Chicago I kind of understood Miles Davis and I understood his music...

"We don't really look back that much in our music. We don't look at the past. The best bits of the past we try to bring with us. They're our songs, songs like Pride (In The Name of Love), Sunday Bloody Sunday, Where the Streets Have No Name. They're the best bits of the past and we'll take them with us. Because we're interested, we're excited, and we have faith in the future. That's where we're headed. So for a city of the future, this is our music... we think that we are strung out. This is our drug, Miracle Drug."

That really meant a lot to me hearing that because I could think about times when I had a rough day, a day full of setbacks, and then I heard a song and it just completely changed how I felt about things. My problems didn't change one bit, but because of that song I felt like I could make it through - I felt a little bit of hope.

I feel the same way about writing. In a way it would be my miracle drug, I suppose. This morning I stopped the pacing around the house and the looking out windows, and I finally sat down to write. I channeled all my thoughts down onto a piece of paper, and it was like the weight that they carried was lifted off of me. And I was able to dismiss the awful ones as nonsense. It's true, I would never speak or write half the thoughts that come into my brain because they are ridiculous. From the 20 minutes I spent writing, I realized that I was still sane. I wasn't losing it, and I wasn't the failure my mind was telling me I was. I also realized that I was human, and that everybody feels this way at some time or another. And after that I was alright. I got some food, went to work, and had a great day.

I guess everybody has moments when they seem to lose their sense of up and down. Life doesn't make sense, we doubt our own abilities, and even wonder what it's all for. We cope with it in different ways. Some of us try to escape through alcohol or drugs. Some of us go completely cold and numb. Some of us try to bury those feelings by buying new products that will only make us feel better for a little while. I think that my miracle drug is pretty good for dealing with things. Those notebooks will always be there (unless they get lost or my house burns down or something) as reference for me to go back and read in the future. And they've already helped. This is my drug, my Miracle Drug.

Hey, want to read a good book?

I have to say, I am loving this book. Got it in the mail Monday and I'll probably finish it before the weekend is over. That never happens for me with books. Usually I become uninterested and start reading another book, and end up reading about 3 books at a time. But no, not this time.

I would recommend this book to anybody. It's an easy read, the chapters are short, and it will make you look at your life a lot differently.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

%$#@!!!!!!!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Scoldplay
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

I missed this for the last 3 weeks. The 10 pm to 10:30 pm time slot was a lonely, desperate time for me. But now that The Daily Show (and for that matter, The Colbert Report) is back on, I can satisfy my frustration from politics through the mocking of government and media. And oh man, it feels good.

Of course, my last post was making fun of Glenn Beck and various other right-wing extremists who made all too much of the president's speech to school kids. And while that was targeting crazy Republicans, it was more about people who put partisanship and political gain ahead of doing what's best or the people who live in this country.

It goes both ways, which is why Nancy Pelosi is one of my least favorite politicians in Washington, and she is a Democrat. From a few months ago when she said she had no idea that the Bush administration had authorized torture, and then later when she actually did know but couldn't do anything about it, and then when she did know and could have done at least something, but chose not to - to now when she says that the house of reps is past the Joe Wilson "truth-tourettes" and then 2 days later passing a resolution to make him apologize on the house floor.

I may be naive to think this is possible, but can we please stop with the petty, selfish partisanship? Can we at least avoid stupid, meaningless actions like forcing a Congressman to apologize after he had already done so and said apology been accepted? For crying out loud, there are regular American citizens with more sense than some of these people. Get something done that matters, and stop trying to seize every opportunity to squeeze all the political points you can out of one man's mistake.

My Audition for The Glenn Beck Show (or anything on Fox News for that matter)

President Obama is at it again. Everything that he is doing is somehow storming up a flurry of controversy, and the latest is something that hits very close to home - a speech given directly to our school children. I was skeptical of the controversy at first, the right-wing critics who were outraged and declared that Obama was taking this opportunity to indoctrinate our youth with socialist ideology. I dismissed it as no more than an overblown media/political circus. But that was until I did a little more crack... research...

I read the original speech as it was posted on whitehouse.gov. Everything seemed fine on the surface. It was just stuff about staying in school and working hard, which appears harmless. Not to be outwitted by whitehouse.gov, I actually posted the speech in Google's socialism calculator* and I was shocked at the results.

Just take this excerpt from the President's speech as it appears on whitehouse.gov:

"I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things."

Pretty normal, right? But this is what came out when I pasted the same statement into the socialism calculator:

"Ich weiß, dass manchmal, Sie bekommen das Gefühl aus dem Fernsehen, dass man reich und erfolgreich sein kann, ohne harte Arbeit - das ist Ihr Ticket zum Erfolg wird durch Klopfen oder Basketball oder eine Realität TV-Star, wenn die Chancen sind, Sie werden doch nicht zu jedem dieser Dinge."

Are you shocked yet? Or are you afraid? Maybe you should be, because this statement reeks of socialism. Notice the word "reich." Hmm... that sounds familiar. 3RD REICH maybe???? Also notice the character ß as well. What is that? You would probably have to be a socialist to know.

Here is another example written in free market capitalism:

"The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best."

But how does it come out in the socialism calculator?

"Die Geschichte von Amerika ist nicht über Menschen, die beendet werden, wenn es hart kam. Es geht um Menschen, die laufenden gehalten, der versucht, härter, liebte ihr Land zu viel, um nichts weniger als ihr Bestes zu tun."

HOLY SWEET MOTHER OF GOD. It says "Die... Amerika." And somebody better warn Beendet Werden and Laufenden Gehalten as well, if they're not already dead.

How can we allow this in our great nation? Obama must be stopped. We should all boycott the speech. If this gets into the minds of our children, it may be the end of the world as we know it.

Glenn Beck, please let me be on your show.

*By socialism calculator, I actually mean that I used the Google English to German translator.

The Road to Glory

Fantasy Football Draft Picks:

QB: Drew Brees
WR: Anquan Boldin
WR: Chad Ochocinco
WR: Vincent Jackson
RB: Brandon Jacobs
RB: Clinton Portis
TE: Anthony Fasano

Bench:
Eli Manning
Lance Moore
Lendale White
Le'Ron McClain
Michael Vick

I'm a little disappointed I didn't get Brady this season, even though I won without him last year. Still, Drew Brees slings the ball around with the best of them, so I'm happy with him. I really like my running backs. I like the guys who score lots of touchdowns, so I'm pretty happy with all four of them. I took a chance on Chad Ochocinco, hoping he'd have kind of a comeback year, and I got Lance Moore because I always like to have a receiver on the same team as my QB for double points. Also, I know I'm going to take a PR hit with Michael Vick but he was my last pick in the draft and I figured, What the heck?

I've been waiting for fantasy football to start for weeks now. I have a 2 year championship win streak going in my league, and I'm pretty excited to defend it. It should be a fun year.

D-bag of the Day

At work, one of the things that my coworkers and I have invented to deal with the stresses and frustrations of working in retail is invent an award for the one person who has seemingly gone out of their way to make us have a crappy day. Whether that person is a customer, fellow employee, doner, or some schmuck on the radio, if they turn a good day into a bad day or a bad day into a worse day, they are considered a serious candidate for this award. This unique individual, if chosen, is cemented forever in history as that day's douchebag of the day.

It's the guy who comes in the store 5 minutes before close and buys a set of sofas and a large desk to go along with it. It's the person who takes a slam in the toilet and throws in too much toilet paper, thus clogging it for one of us to fix. It's the couple who brings a trailer load of pure and utter junk that has been rained on to us as a reasonable donation and then puts $1,000 on their tax receipt. I could go on and on.

But today, the d-bag of the day award goes to a person who went especially out of his way to earn this honor, and his name is: Guy-Who-Stole-My-Dog.

Ok, so I don't know his real name. But his name doesn't really matter. Guy-Who-Stole-My-Dog essentially waited until night time to pick up one of our family dogs, Bilco, and apparently take him away to his own house just a few miles down the road. In other words, he stole him. Now, the dog may have wandered off, but he never goes far, and he doesn't resemble a stray at all. He even has a collar. So, GWSMD took Bilco to his own house, put him in his fence, and removed his collar (because of course without his collar we wouldn't able to identify him). At this point, I suppose the man assumed that Bilco was his dog.

But it gets worse. My dad actually had a friend who noticed our dog at this other guy's house, and when he ran into my dad at a gas station, brought it up. They went over to GWSMD's trailer and found Bilco laying on the front porch. It was obvious by the poor dog's looks that he wasn't being fed. His ribs were sticking out more than normal, and his fur didn't look quite as healthy. No one actually came to the door when they knocked, probably because they knew they deserved a beatdown, and so my dad and his friend took Bilco and brought him home.

I guess the moral of the story is, don't mess with a person's dog. I don't know what would make any sane individual see a healthy dog with a collar out somewhere and immediately think he had a right to take it for his own and then not even go as far as to feed it, but it happened. And it makes me mad, because we've had the dog since he was a puppy. I mean, that's the dog that sits beside me every day when I go in out in the front yard to read a book. That's the dog that Stephanie and I ran through a freaking lightning storm to rescue from our dad's shop. It's the same dog that gets scared to death every year when we shoot fireworks on the 4th. And it's the same dog that wouldn't stop jumping on me once, and so I tossed him into our pond. And you're just going to steal him? Douchebag...

But I am glad that Bilco is back. Even if he is a stupid dog, he is our stupid dog. Last night when I was going to bed, I really hoped that I hadn't seen him for the last time. You can imagine how relieved I was when I pulled into the driveway and heard his familiar bark (the same one that wakes me up in the middle of the night because he is barking at a leaf or something).

A Quick Life Update

If you happen to be out driving tomorrow, and if you happen to pass Mission Possible and see a red S-10 in the parking lot, don't bother asking whether or not that's my truck. Between 12 and 6, you will be right in assuming that it is. And you will probably think, Hold on a second... he is living in Huntsville now. What is he doing back here? Well the explanation is very simple: I came back.

Manny Ramirez cuts off throws to the infield from his own position in outfield. He goes (went) into the Green Monster to use the bathroom between innings. He does (did) steroids. They have a saying for this, that it's "Manny being Manny." Regarding my coming back from UAH, I guess you could say that it's "Matt being Matt." I go to college, I take classes, I transfer, I change my major many times, I transfer again, I drop out for a year, I go back, I transfer again... this is in essence my college years crammed into one sentence. And so if you are shocked right now at the fact that I stayed at UAH for a few days and then dropped out and returned, you really shouldn't be. A pig returns to the mud, a dog returns to its vomit, Gomer returned to the street corners and well, I could probably have chosen better examples, but I returned to my habit of not sticking to the plan.

Seriously though, the best explanation I can give is that I got up there and stayed a few days only to realize that living on campus is not for me. It might have been good right out of high school, and there are definitely people out there who love it, but not me. I withdrew from all my classes, gave back my financial aid money, loaded up my truck, and came home. Not once have I regretted it since, and immediately the next day I went to register for whatever I had left to take at Jeff State. Even though I changed colleges, I still fully intend to finish my degree in History and Education and get a job as a teacher. This hasn't set me back or discouraged me one bit.

The one thing I am going to miss about Huntsville is the church that I had the pleasure of attending once. It was called Weatherly Heights and I found it on the Faith and Justice directory on the Sojourners website. At its surface, it was a Baptist church that didn't seem very Baptist at all. Ministers wear robes during the service, the sermon was about 20 minutes long, and women are permitted to be in positions of leadership. During the worship, I couldn't hear the music minister over the voice of the entire congregation, which is always great for worship. Also, the prayers, the sermon, and the entire order of the service were deep and very well-thought out. The pastor preached from Leviticus, and actually provided historical context for what he was talking about. It wasn't some watered down self-help message repackaged for Christians, but actual rich, bare, Biblical theology presented in its context.

I really liked that church, but a minimum 1 hour commute is too much for me to be able to attend now. I'm back in the B-ham area and I'm on the market for a new church. Some might be wondering if I am going to go back to Hilldale, but I'm going to have to say here that I'm not. I like Hilldale, and I really like the people there, but I'm sorry to have to say I'm going to be moving on.

You see, things get a little complicated when I talk about church. After the crap that happened at Hopewell, my take on church changed. Not that it was all Hopewell, but more or less that situation combined with observations on several different fronts (not least of these being WDJC). And somewhere along the line, I lost my faith in church. Church as usual doesn't work for me anymore, but the problem is that I don't know of any churches here that aren't church as usual.

Because I want to start believing in churches again. I want to start believing in God's people to be more than people who simply listen to a different kind of music and don't cuss. But the solution to that is not just more modern worship music. It's not a bunch of lights or the obligatory hip pastor-with-fohawk. It's not wrapping yourself in a watered down Christian subculture where you cut yourself off from the world and wait on Jesus to steal you away to heaven, or at least that's not the way I believe it should be.

But anyways, I did say this would be quick. That's essentially where I'm at now. Peace.

"Heaven and earth, I repeat, are made for each other, and at certain points they intersect and interlock. Jesus is the ultimate such point. We as Christians are meant to be such points, derived from him." -N.T. Wright

Don Miller told me to do this, so I did

The Mentoring Project - Elephant Musth Cycle from The Mentoring Project on Vimeo.

A couple years ago I read this great book by Donald Miller called To Own a Dragon. In it, Don details his life growing up without a father and his experiences with several different mentors, or male role models in his life. Growing up without a father, or with a bad father, can wreak havoc on a young boy's emotions and mental state. In fact, an overwhelming majority of men in jail grew up without fathers. This is no coincidence. The family is supposed to work the right way only if a mother and father are both present, but sadly our generation is seeing a crisis in fatherhood. Men aren't sticking around to raise their kids. Some dads are abusive towards their kids or wives, and this leaves the children with what we like to call "issues."

Fortunately there are people out there like Don who are undertaking the daunting task of trying to fix this fatherhood mess. His organization partners with churches so that they can start a mentoring program to give young kids good role models. Their efforts are going to help lots of kids grow up with positive influences in their lives, and that is something that will make a huge difference.

Also, speaking of Donald Miller, I am getting extremely excited about this.

Bible Questions Are Fun

I get so frustrated with the Bible sometimes. It's such a complicated book. It seems like I can't read a chapter without at least one question coming up about something that doesn't seem to make sense or something that contradicts something else. Tonight I decided I would read Jesus' sermon on the mount. So I read it and, as always, something jumped out at me that doesn't really make sense. Unable to come up with a satisfying answer on my own, I thought I'd try to put this question up on the blog and let anybody who feels like it weigh in.

My question comes right after the Lord's prayer when Jesus says, "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matthew 6:14-15). What I am wondering is this: Is Jesus putting another condition on salvation when he is saying this?

I noticed that when I was reading through the sermon on the mount, Jesus seems to be warning people that they need to watch what their actions are, or they may be in danger of hell.

"But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire" - Matthew 5:22

"If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell." - Matthew 5:29

This is where it gets tricky for me because I have learned that it doesn't matter what we do, it matters that we accept and believe in Jesus. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," as it says in Romans. So if I insult somebody, look lustfully at somebody, or even kill someone, I can still be saved by God's grace and forgiveness. But Jesus says that if I do these things, I will be "liable to the hell of fire." He doesn't say that "if you don't believe I am the Son of God you will be liable to the hell of fire." And it gets even more confusing when he says that if I don't forgive others for their trespasses, God won't forgive mine.

It's kind of like that old formula for becoming a Christian, the A, B, C's - Admit, Believe, and Confess. Does that mean it's Admit, Believe, Confess, and Forgive? Jesus did say I won't be forgiven if I don't forgive others. And if I'm not forgiven, how can I be saved? (By the way, I don't really believe that salvation is something that can be confined to an ABC formula - a three step process that gets you automatically a place in heaven. But that's another blog entirely.)

I guess it's just odd how the Bible actually treats the idea of "going to heaven." Like it sometimes is treated like a "how to get to heaven" book, but when I dive in the book it doesn't actually read that way. For instance, if I was someone who knew nothing about the Bible, but I wanted to make sure to get into heaven, I would be completely confused by it. Like I would open up to the first page and there is this poem about the creation of the world and a story of the fall of man, and then it goes into this guy Abraham who had a baby even though he was really old and his wife was barren. And then it follows the lives of his family. Finally, I would realize this wasn't what I was looking for, and I would flip through the book. Stories of slavery and wandering around in the desert, history, poems praising God, words of wisdom, writings of prophets, the story of Jesus, letters to different churches. I'm not saying that how to get to heaven is not in there, I'm just saying that it's really hard to find. And it seems like that is a very critical part of our faith, which is why this is so strange. You would think God would put it in there, highlight it, and make the ink glow on the page. Or that there would be a table of contents at the beginning that would say "For information on going to heaven, turn to page 1142." But that's not in there. Even the Romans road, which many Christians are taught to use to lead people to Christ, is several separate verses ripped out of the book of Romans and made into a formula of salvation. Not even Paul actually put them directly together, step by step.

Anyways, this has confused me lately. Is there more to salvation than simply believing and accepting? Can I go to heaven without forgiving others, even if I do believe? And why doesn't God make the way to heaven more obvious?

Any thoughts?

Seeing Past the Donkey and the Elephant

In one of those vague childhood memories that is still with me, I can recall my first "discussion" I had on politics. It was with my mom, while we were going somewhere in the car. She was driving and I, being what I'm guessing to be around 10 years old, sat quietly in the passenger seat with my belt buckled. We had been to the polls to vote for governor or something like that. My mom was telling me that she always voted for the Republican candidates, straight ticket. That was why she didn't have to fill in all the boxes on the form. As a little kid, I just assumed that when I got old enough I would continue voting the way my parents did, and so I asked my mom, "What's the difference between Republicans and Democrats?" My mom, never being someone who really got into politics and who was faced with the difficult task of explaining the issues to a 10 year old, simply said, "Well, the Republican is the more Christian party and the Democrats are not."

That settled it for me. After all, I was a Christian and I knew I wanted to vote like a Christian when I turned 18. So without further questions I went on to vaguely support Republican politics through my teenage years. I formed a healthy dislike for Bill Clinton when all I really knew about him was that he cheated on his wife and that somehow that made him a terrible president. I supported Bob Dole when he ran against Clinton and all I remember is him falling off a stage while he was trying to shake somebody's hand. I had no idea really what either candidate stood for or wanted to do for the country. I just followed the Republican or Democrat label and that decided for me who I would pull for in elections.

My first chance to vote came in 2004 when I had just turned 18. At the time I was going to a church where it was preached from the pulpit that the Christian thing to do was vote Republican. Again, this was at a time when I really didn't care much for politics. I didn't question why we were at war in Iraq and I didn't really think too much about Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest people along with other issues that were coming up at the time. The only person at my church who had a different take on politics was Andy. Andy talked about politics a lot. He voted for John Kerry that year. He and April were probably the only two church members to do so. But I have to admit I tuned him out a lot of the time because I really wasn't that interested. And it's not a pleasant thing to disagree on politics. I did, in fact, end up voting for Bush that year.

I say all of this because through all of those years I bought into a lie. It was a lie that my mom believed, my church believed, and I believed to be true. And that lie was that Republican politics and Christianity were one and the same. It's a lie that has been perpetuated through Christian communities in America for decades, and because of that politicians and talking heads have tricked Christians in order to get their votes. It has led to Christians in high percentages supporting policies like torture, an unjust war, and economic strategies that leave out the people that Jesus taught us to care for the most - the poor and vulnerable.

I think that this happens because a lot of times when we follow politics and vote, we get caught up in the game of partisanship and in doing so, we lose sight of the things we really stand for. When issues are split along party lines, it's easy for a person to see the other party as constantly wrong and their party as always right. For Christians, this is dangerous because neither party comes close to maintaining consistent Christian values, but we really act like they do.

I remember last month at my church when we had our annual 4th of July service. We sang all our patriotic songs and pledged allegiance to the flag. At the end of all the national praise it finally came time for the sermon, Pastor Ron went on stage and he said as calmly as he could: "I am a patriot. I am a God and country person. But, we have to make sure that it's not more about our country than God."

Pastor Ron was my hero that day. He was dead on. I have seen many times Christians getting caught up in politics, and the thing that ultimately decides their position on a particular issue is not their faith, it's their party affiliation. For instance, one morning last week I was at work and they had WDJC playing. On the morning show, they were taking callers to give their opinions on the "beer summit" in which Obama invited Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt James Crowley to the White House to have a beer. This was in response to Obama's comments that Crowley "acted stupidly" in arresting the Harvard professor.

So people called in and many of them said that the president should not invite these men over to drink a beer, that as president he is a role model and by drinking beer he is setting a bad example. If you have ever read the Gospels, this should be probably striking you as ironic right now. Jesus, who is the ultimate role model and example for us Christians, drank wine. He once went to a wedding, and when the wine had run out he took some water and turned it into more wine, which was even better wine than they had at first! So what happened was Christians were criticizing the president as being a bad role model for doing something Jesus, the lord and savior, did himself.

What I'm trying to say here is God does not play along party lines, and so neither should we. The Republicans are not the most Christian party, and neither are the Democrats. Some people try to present that lie in both obvious and subtle ways. We should be careful that when we cast our ballots and decide what side to take on certain issues, we are not just playing the party game. The Bible says nothing about limited or expanded government, trickle down economic theory, or who you should or shouldn't tax but it says a lot about helping the needy, protecting life, caring for the environment, and maintaining peace. On these issues we should look beyond the red and blue, the donkey and the elephant.

On Being Mediocre at Halo

Well I just noticed that it has been almost a month to the day since I wrote my last post. I knew it had been a while, and as I have checked my blog page from time to time I have slowly grown tired of the male enhancement thing being the post that comes up. It's actually amazing that I haven't written anything this month, because SO much has happened and there is SO much to comment on. Andy is resigning, Steph is moving away, the Roberts are looking for a church, I'm about to move away to a new place, and WDJC is just as awful as ever. It's almost a situational overload, but I haven't found my way to the keyboard to type my thoughts. Maybe it's because it's all complicated, hard to encompass how I really feel. I'm sure it's a lot of things, but I can say one thing for sure, and that is that Halo 3 has played a big part in it.

You see, I play video games a lot. I always have since I was about 3 or 4 years old. And there are some good games out there, but I have gotten to the point to where I don't really get consumed with them anymore. When Perfect Dark was a new game and I was a middle schooler, I would pop that cartridge in my Nintendo 64 and literally play for hours and hours. This is a good thing now because I have a job and school to deal with, and I sometimes have a bad time prioritizing. But every now and then a game comes along that is fun and has so much replayability that I have a hard time pulling myself away from it. For a few months, World of Warcraft had my soul. Now, the game is Halo 3.

Don't get me wrong, Halo is not near as bad as WOW was. I can take Halo in spurts, but after a while it gets a little old and I get motion sickness from all the camera movement. It's a heck of a game, and a whole lot of fun to play. I've gotten to the point where I only play it when my friends are online, because I take it too seriously when I play alone. My buddies help keep me grounded, and they have been perhaps the most enjoyable part of the game. I get to keep up with Kevin and Aimee down in Tuscaloosa on an almost nightly basis because we can play and chat over X-box live. We always catch up for the first few minutes until the first match starts, and then we have to stop talking because we can't chat and kill folk simultaneously.

I have also been able to rekindle friendships with the Neelys over X-box live and Halo playing. Since we left Hopewell, I have only seen Sam at Best Buy where he works and haven't seen Daniel at all. Some nights the four of us play for several hours, and this is where the nerdy part comes in. Halo 3 has a feature where you can go back and watch all the recent matches you have played, make video clips, and take pictures of the action. And so after everyone goes off to bed or to do something else, I head to the theatre and watch all the matches over again looking for highlights and good photo ops. Yeah, it's incredibly dorky, but I enjoy it.

In Halo, I don't know if anybody can ever be good enough to be truly satisfied. Somebody who is better than you is always out there ready to no scope you or hit you with a sticky grenade from all the way across the map or kill you 20 times with only a pistol. It happens, and it sucks when it does. I used to get mad, to want to really get good at the game so that I would be the one dealing out all the punishment instead of the one constantly respawning. I've gotten pretty decent, I would say, but I've learned that I'm nowhere near being able to play with a lot of the serious Halo players out there.

For instance, last night Sam and I were playing a 2 vs. 2 match where you could only use pistols and sniper rifles. We are pretty casual players, but unfortunately we were paired up with some professional Halo snipers who were ready to no scope and head shot their way to an unquestionable victory.

But we gave it a go. The game started and we moved out cautiously, trying to keep our eyes out for our opponents, hoping to see them before they spotted us. We made our way down a corridor and one of the guys on the other team headed our way from the other side. Shots rang out, and I got hit but not in the head, so I didn't die. Everybody headed for cover. I moved back around the corner to get a shot and the red team (we were the blue team) was waiting for me. A shot rangs out, and I was dead. 1 to nothing, and as I respawned I heard another shot ring out and Sam went down as well. 2 to nothing.

So I started to move again, ever alert for my red foes. I moved into an opening and spotted red armor, one of them standing there aiming at something and not moving at all. I raised the scope to my eye and positioned the reticle right on his head and BANG, I was dead. Before I could take my shot my target's teammate took me out. This was basically how the match went. I would be walking, searching for someone to kill, and a shot would ring out and I would be dead. I would have no idea where it came from, no idea how. Sam and I had a little success. I got a few head shots on the red team and Sam gots at least one kill. But by the end of the game, the score was 25-7.

It hurts to get beat like that, and most proud men are competitive. That's hard to take, even if it is a meaningless game. And I could give you example after example of times when stuff like that happens. Games where I have never been close to winning. But I have to settle for that and when the emotion and the anger subsides, and my competitive spirit simmers down, I realize that I am perfectly fine being as mediocre as I am at that game. Because some people are too good at things that are that trivial. People have made fun of me before because I can't whistle or blow a bubble gum bubble, and I just respond with, "Why would I want to do that?" Halo is a game, it's meant for fun and entertainment, and I want to make sure I keep it that way. It's not cool to be THAT good at that game. Because, what do you give up to put so much into a video game? Sunlight, a social life, etc. Video games are great, and the most fun video games are even better. But they all have their place.

That said, does anybody want to play some Halo now? My gamertag is mathius100.

Dumb Male Enhancement Commercials

So last night I was eating a pizza in front of my TV. It was a Tombstone, pepperoni pizza and I overcooked it a little bit. Lacking the patience to wait for it to cool off, I burned my mouth on the sauce and cheese, and today my tongue still hurts because of that. I don't remember what I was watching on TV, but it was during the commercial break and I was basically ignoring the ads like I always do. A Cialis commercial came on, and I ignored it, but one phrase snapped me back into reality quickly and, I will say, almost produced extreme projectile vomiting.

They were advertising some new Cialis pill that you could take for your "male enhancement" and the announcer asked a question that I thought was rhetorical, but unfortunately it wasn't: What's your favorite part? Next thing I know, some old couple pops up on the screen and the woman says, "My favorite part is when it lasts really long."

I almost spit the pizza out of my mouth. The last thing I want to know about while I'm enjoying my dinner is some old lady's favorite part of her and her old husband's old "activities" together. I hate those commercials, even more than I hate just regular commercials. And there are some things about them that I don't get. The Cialis ad comes on with the porn music and all, but what's with the bathtubs? Maybe my education about "the act" has failed me in some way, but what does an old man and woman sitting in separate bathtubs, outside, on a hill, while the sun is going down have to do with sex? Is that a metaphor for something? It would have to be, right? Because nobody ever says, "Now, when a man and a woman love each other very much, they take off their clothes and go outside to their separate bathtubs that sit on the top of the hill in their back yard, which overlooks a meadow..." (If any of you know the answer to this, please enlighten me.)

And there are the commercials with that weirdo guy, I think Bob is his name. I guess those are supposed to be funny or something. Like Bob's neighbors are jealous of him because he takes a "male enhancement" drug and there is the most memorable shot of the guy standing there holding his water hose as it starts to slump and the water runs out. That along with other innuendos are in commercials like this. Bob is dressed up as Santa Clause at the mall and all the women there want to sit on his lap. And of course, there's the one where Bob is driving the race car, but I don't really get that one either.

My favorite (and by favorite, I mean quite possibly the most ridiculous) of these ads would probably be the Viva Viagra commercials. Because there's nothing better than getting together with your best friends in your old garage and singings songs about the pill that lets you have sex longer. I mean, I know that's what I do when I hang out with my friends... doesn't everybody? In fact, the only songs I know on guitar are worship and praise songs, and songs about Viagra. (I hope you are picking up the sarcasm here.) And don't get me started on the side effects...

I just hate these commercials, they're so stupid. Even with all the lame phone dating service ads and ones about downloading ringtones, the Cash-4-Gold commercials, and the Tag body spray, I would say that the male enhancement ads are the worst. Next time I'm eating pizza or any other meal, I hope I don't learn more than I want to know about an old couple's sex life. I don't care, don't want to find out, so please get it off my TV.

A Conversation

Quick... interesting or unique thought or observation...

Go... now.

Ok, um...

um....

um... I don't know. I got nothin'.

Come on, Matt, you have to have something you want to say.

Not really...

Just think about something that happened today and elaborate on it. You know, be thoughtful and all that stuff.

Well, I did go to the dump today.

Ok... did anything happen that would make a good lesson or... maybe something interesting... or something that will generate some comments?

Nope, although it did smell like coffee beans mixed with diarrhea. Maybe I could make that a metaphor for how the money for some people's coffee addictions could go to preventing African kids from dying from diarrhea.

I don't know... is that really even a metaphor?

I don't know.

Well, don't you have anything to say?

Can I complain about Christian radio?

Don't you already do that enough already?

Well, can I write about Barack Obama?

Look, why don't you try to take it in a different direction... you know, write about sports or your life, or Jon and Kate Plus 8?

I don't like writing about sports, I like talking about sports. My life isn't interesting, and here's my blog post about Jon and Kate Plus 8: Who effing cares?

(sigh)

Look, can I just post that YouTube video of Ashlee Simpson getting booed at the Orange Bowl or something?

Matt, that's lazy and you know it.

I don't care, voice.

You're a douchebag.

Shut up, I'm going to play Halo now.

I just found this article which gives accounts of some soldiers who landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. I thought I'd share it, because it really moved me. Not only the bravery of the men who stormed the beaches that day, but the horrors that they experienced and how they had to stop thinking just to keep it from getting to them. When nations wage war, these men and women bear the brunt of it, and I think we have to do whatever we can to avoid good people having to give up their lives if at all possible. Anyways, here's the link:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/06/03/dday.stories/index.html

This is the world I see

I was talking to somebody I know the other day and he was telling me about how he had been reading through the Old Testament, specifically the book of Daniel. "Man, there's some scary stuff in there," he said. I agreed. The prophetic book has all kinds of strange imagery that can evoke fear. But this conversation has stayed with me because of what this guy said next, which is something along the lines of what I've heard preachers say for years now - that if God doesn't judge America soon, he is going to have to apologize to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Of course, that's not in Daniel. It's in Genesis, but the Old Testament gives accounts of God judging the world and punishing people for wickedness. There was the flood. There was Sodom and Gomorrah. There was all the tribes who inhabited the promised land that the Israelites were promised. All of these people faced God's wrath, and so what of America, whose people are committing some of the same sins today and yet we haven't been invaded or led off into slavery? We haven't been destroyed with a flood or fire raining from heaven.

While I personally don't believe God regards the United States in the same way as Israel in the Old Testament, my issue here is not really a theological one, but a question of perspective. It's about believing whether or not our nation and the world we live in are getting worse and worse, more sinful, and more corrupt each day. Of course, certain end times theology that includes the rapture and destruction of the world as we know it (which I believe has been debunked by N.T. Wright) has contributed to this outlook as well. People are going to become more corrupt. They are going to turn away from God and practice more and more evil. It's supposed to happen this way...

But I wonder that even though things are extremely far from ideal, is it really true that we are getting worse? I mean, the present may not be all that great, but what makes anybody think that America's past is so much better than its present? At the countries founding, we had stolen land from the Native Americans. We forced them off of their land, fought wars against them, and killed them in the name of God when we were motivated by nothing more than greed and selfishness. We also imported human beings from Africa who had been literally ripped from their lives, homes, and loved ones. We shipped them across the Atlantic Ocean on ships in the worst of conditions, bought and sold them as property, and forced them to work for nothing. And then there was the fact that at our nation's founding, you had to be a white, property owning male to vote.

It seems to me that while lots of things in this world aren't great, we are at least in many ways making progress. You would think that if God was going to punish us, it would be for the things we did to blacks, Indians, and others. The fact that we might allow gay people to get married has got nothing on that. For those that long for the "good old days," when everything seemed to be nicer, simpler, and more Christian; remember that these weren't necessarily the good old days for everybody. Is there a black man or woman who would look back to the 1950s as a better time? I think not.

But, I assure you this: If tomorrow there is a loud trumpet blast and we Christians are zapped up into the air to meet Jesus in the clouds, or if some other nation invades and hauls us off into slavery, or if a terrible natural disaster (global warming? That would be ironic...) were to wipe us off the map, I promise that I will eat crow.

Trading Your Soul for Security

Love your enemies, unless they withhold vital information from you.

That is how it goes, right?

You would think so, with the way that the torture debates have been going over the last several weeks. President Obama released the torture memos detailing the various methods that were used on each prisoner: Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, varying forms of physical abuse. Subsequently, all backlash hell broke loose when conservatives were quick to criticize the president’s action. Now, on television, radio, the internet, and in coffee shops and Jack’s restaurants, people are asking the question: Should we torture?

Torture.

Just roll the word around in your head for a second.

Torture.

What kind of images, feelings, and impulses does it conjure up?

Torture.

A necessary evil? According to many, yes it is.

While we don’t want to torture, we must do so in circumstances when lives and our national security are at stake.

Ok, I understand that torture is something that we don’t want to do. I understand the “what if” scenarios that so many conservatives bring up when debating this question. What if a nuclear weapon is going to detonate on American soil and we have detainees that can give us information to stop it? What if we can use torture to save lives? I understand that people believe that in order to stop terrorists we must be willing to do some of the things that they do, to “break the rules” a little bit in a Jack Bauer sort of way. But what I don’t understand is the stance that many evangelical Christians take to not only defend the use of torture, but the action of advocating for it.

On the Christian radio the other day (I can hear some of you moaning “oh God, not again” at this point), I caught a piece of a segment in which a DJ from one of Crawford Broadcasting’s conservative talk radio stations was on and was criticizing Obama for his decision to release the torture memos to the public. Ronnie Bruce, the daytime radio host, simply agreed and stated that we are living in “scary” times and that Christians should be praying now more than ever. Indeed, things are getting a little scary.

But the scary part is not that we have a president who is willing to make the ethical stand against torture. The scary part is that we have Christian radio personalities, pastors, political leaders, and public figures who are going on the airwaves and in pulpits and advocating for it.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Matthew 5:9

You see, when I think of some of the great religious heroes throughout history, is isn’t those who believed in resolving conflict by means of violence and torture. It has been people who advocated love and peace. For instance, Mother Teresa, who gave her life to the act of loving, living with, and caring for the world’s poor and diseased. Or Ghandi, who championed peace and nonviolence in India. Or the great Martin Luther King Jr., who stood up for equality in the form passive resistance.

In this sense, I find it kind of strange that many of those who claim to follow the Prince of Peace are the very ones saying we should use torture to interrogate terrorists. The religious conservatives who claim to hold the moral high ground in American are often the ones defending the use of torture. But what is moral about this? What is ethical about strapping a human being, made in the image of God, to a chair and pouring water up his nose until he almost drowns? Even if you think it’s necessary, do you really think it’s right?

Do not repay evil for evil. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:17 and 21

As a person who believes in Jesus’ teachings, I can’t support that. The position against torture is easily the high ground, no matter what kind of “what if” scenarios they come up with. True ethics don’t go out the window just because a situation changes, because our security is being threatened. In these kinds of circumstances, it is more important to cling to our morals and values than ever.

I think that the church, as a community of faith, should look at itself and reexamine this issue. Shouldn’t we, as believers in the God who is the great force for good in this world, be the ones taking the moral high ground in these cases? Should we really be the ones who are criticizing the leaders who decide to do away with torture, or should we rejoice at the fact? Is it really worth it to trade away our souls for our security?

Maybe we should just ask the great question:

What would Jesus do?

Or how about a better question:

Who would Jesus torture?

30 Hour Famine 2009

So what are you eating for your last meal? That is, if you are doing the 30 Hour Famine, what are you eating? I personally am glad that the last meal will consist with the most important meal of the day (and my favorite), breakfast. But for your last meal, you have to make it count. This is going to be what sustains you for the next 30 hours. You don't want to make the mistake of putting a hot pocket or a Pop-tart or anything from Taco Bell inside of you. You want something that is--oh what's the word... nourishing. If I had the time, I would be at Cracker Barrel tomorrow morning gobbling down a Mama's Pancake Breakfast, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to go with plan B which consists of sausage biscuits, eggs, and grits at Ken's BBQ.

I can't believe it has already been an entire year since last time we did this. I have been anticipating it for a few weeks now and it's hard to believe that it's already here. Last year I remember asking myself if we could do the famine in a 1 Corinthians 13 sort of way. In other words, couldwe fast, raise money, worship and pray, and everything else with real and authentic love? Could we do this without sounding like just a clanging cymbal? Because I have never shed a tear for a starving African child. Though sad, it doesn't really grab me because it's the world we live in and I mistakenly assume that it has always been that way and it always will be.

Sitting in this luxury box that is America, it's easy to give in to apathy. It's easy to keep our "headphones on", to not listen to the stories of those who are suffering, to eat and drink and laugh without the slightest notion that the world is groaning with pain. We hear statistics all the time that are alarming. 26 million kids die each day from hunger or hunger-related illness. On and on and on, the staggering statistics. It seems like such a painful burden, one that we don't want to take.

I think that I might know one way that can help us from becoming clanging cymbals. Sure, it's easy to look at the problem and judge that it's too big and do nothing, but that's only an excuse. In my opinion, a great way to prevent apathy from setting in is to put a face with those numbers.

On the Monday after the famine this year I will be giving my last speech of the semester. The goal is to try to get the audience to either do something or stop doing something. It worked out really great because, without knowing that the famine was this weekend, I planned at the beginning of the semester to do this specific speech on aiding a child who is lacking food, education, and healthcare. Today I went to the library to work on that speech. I found a table in an empty spot of the room and set down my bag. After I had pulled out my notebook and a pen, I finally grabbed from one of the pockets a small picture of a young, African boy.

Kashala Mujinga is his name. He lives in the Congo and is 6-years-old. His parents work on a farm as regular laborers, and he has 4 sisters and 1 brother. His favorite hobby is, in his own words, "playing the football." I got this picture right before Christmas of last year, and I cannot describe to you how it felt to see this kid who is receiving food, education, and healthcare because one night at a WorldVision event, I made the commitment to send money to fund all of these necessities. It was unbelievable.

As I opened my notebook to jot down some ideas and plan my speech, I set Kashala's picture to the side where I could see it. Every now and then I would stop, pick it up, and just look at it for a minute or two. I wonder what he's doing right now, I would think. I wonder how his parents felt when they found out that their little boy had a sponsor. Of all the speeches I've done this semester, this one is different. It's a labor of love. It affects real people and real lives... it saves lives. It's personal.

Which takes me back to the cymbals. Whereas last year, apathy was a concern of mine, I know that this year it's not. I haven't even thought about it. Why? Because instead of hearing numbers and statistics, I've got a face to go with them. Instead of thinking, If I don't do something, some African kids are going to die; it's more like If I don't do something, Kashala will die. It's a real kid who goes to school, plays football, does chores, and just regular things that people do.

After over a year of supporting Kashala, praying for him, and sending and receiving things such as Christmas and Easter cards, I am all the more pumped up for this famine. Because yeah, it's going to suck when I've been at work for 8 hours and haven't had anything to eat. It's going to be just as bad trying to go to sleep on an empty stomach. But you know what? Because we're doing this famine, that's a feeling that several kids aren't going to have to experience. Because of our church doing God's work, kids aren't going to waste away because they can't fill their stomachs.

Finally, I just want to say that if anybody hasn't considered aiding a child in need, maybe you should look into it. It costs about 30 to 40 dollars a month (which is how much I spend on my X-box Live and Gamefly subscriptions). It's a great way to put a face with the many numbers and statistics that are out there and it's a great way of taking care of people who truly need it. I couldn't recommend it more. Give it a try, save a life.

See you guys at the famine.

There and Back Again

Mark this day down on your calendar. Circle it, put a star around it, and highlight it with blue, pink, and yellow. Get out your planner and make a note about today. Make sure that you never forget that today is the day that I got my acceptance letter to the University of Alabama in Huntsville...

...for the second time.

I guess it doesn't really have as much of a punch the second time around. I've had a year to strengthen my resolve, discover my ambition to go um... somewhere, and test the academic waters to make sure I'm not the same slacker I was a few years ago. The truth is last year I wasn't ready to make the transition from working a full time to job to quitting, moving away, and taking on a full load at university. But now I think--no I'm sure--that I am. I'm 23 for crying out loud! I'm ready for anything!

Of course an acceptance letter doesn't mean that much to me at the moment. I'm really happy but I was expecting it. It felt good to tear open the envelope, read the letter, and let my mind fill with hope for what the future may hold. But it doesn't mean a thing unless the money comes through. That's what messed up everything last year.

It has to come through this time. If not I think I'm going to have to do some serious rearranging with my life because it's been the same old, same old for so long and I can't take it much longer. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm an adult and still living with my parents, working the same hometown job I've been working for over 3 years, and wandering around in an academic maze that has seemingly gone nowhere for almost 5 years.

In my entire being I am anticipating a change. I think this is more than just in my head or something that I have to do in order to grow up. It feels like the entire rhythm of my life is pushing me to go on. It's like I've become so restless being stuck in the same places for so long. I need to finally get that feeling that a person gets when they go to their boss and say, "Only two more weeks for me." I need to be able to see Locust Fork, Pinson, and Center Point in the rear view mirror and have that nostalgic feeling in my chest as I drive away knowing that I will return but things just won't be the same. I need to finally be able to say so long, dad. I need to find a church that is interested in providing ministries and activities for people my age, not just those who are older or younger than I am. And I need a place where I can invite friends to come over and just hang out, watch a ballgame or play some X-box. I don't have that luxury here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want to be away from all the amazing people in my life. I love my friends and family and because of those special people, it is going to make leaving that much harder. I have no intentions of ever breaking contact with any of my friends in my life. What I'm talking about is just the fact that I have to make a life for myself and that's going to take some sort of journey, a story that requires that things must change even if only for a little while.

Because a guy can only load furniture into cars for so long until he says I can't take it anymore, I was made to do more than this. A guy can only eat his mama's cooking for so long until he is embarrassed that he can't make anything more than a cheese sandwich or frozen pizza. People in general don't like walls. We don't like cages. We have to get out, stretch our legs, and sometimes run as hard and as fast as we can just for the sake of doing it. We have to, because we are people, and that's what we are supposed to do.

And so I am praying that the money comes. I am praying that my future lies somewhere... else. Because here isn't bad, but for a stagnant 23-year-old, it just doesn't hold the same glamor as there.

Behold!

...the most amazing, wonderful candy ever, the Skitburst!

"What's the son of a duck? It's a duck."

Guy claims Bible is not true, and gets owned by Colbert.

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This is a Good Thing

I find this video pretty encouraging. Jim Wallis is president of Sojourners, which is a Christian magazine and group that focuses on social justice and addressing humanity's greatest problems such as poverty, war, the environment, and basic human rights. I've been reading his new book lately, and from the Sojourners website I found this video of President Obama's new Faith-Based Council. Like I said, it makes me more optimistic about faith and politics, and I'm looking forward to seeing what these guys do to work on these crucial issues.



First of all, I like to see the cooperation and harmony between these three, all representing different religions on this Faith-Based Council. We've seen in the past so many media interviews with evangelicals on TV being the opposite of humble and arguing about gay marriage, abortion, or whether or not God wanted Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 to happen. Instead of highlighting their differences and creating an ugly scene of bigotry and intolerance for all of America to see, these leaders are finding common ground and trying to use each of their own different faiths to bring a better world.

CNN probably wanted them to argue, because that gets them better ratings and thus more money. I'm still not sure why the interviewer asked the Muslim guy what he thought of the number of Christians in America dropping by 10%. Still, it was refreshing to see religious leaders coming together to try to find ways to help people and not just argue over their differences.

I also liked how Rev. Wallis completely dodged the question about Tony Dungy being on the council. So what if he won the Super Bowl, who cares whether he's on the council or not? Wallis made a simple comment about not knowing who will be on the council and moved on to an issue that actually matters--poverty. Will it net CNN high ratings? Probably not, but it will make a big difference in the world and in peoples' lives.

This is good to see. When there has been so much religious polarization and discrimination in the past, especially in the media, it's good to finally see people of different faiths working together for the common purpose of helping people.

Anyways, I really like this Jim Wallis guy. I was going to post an interview he did on The Daily Show but it wouldn't work. I'm posting the link below. I think that if you can watch it, you should. His message is something that is refreshing and all Christians should hear.

Jim Wallis on The Daily Show

Keeping Myself in Check (Part 2)

I was on twitter before it was even popular. Does that mean anything at all? I don’t know, but all I remember was my sister telling me to text “follow steph23” to the number 40404 and create my own account for her to follow. If I remember correctly, we treated it only as a joke at first, texting the stupidest and most monotonous things to 40404 to which the other sibling would receive the update. Later, after I found out more friends had it and we started to weave our web of twitter friends and followers, I didn’t notice that this 40404 thing seemed to grow into a tool that I along with lots of others used often for purposes both good and bad.

It was the new perspective from Kevin’s blog post about twitter that really made the difference. As I got more friends and a few kids from the youth group (who I also consider to be friends) to follow me on twitter, I think I let it go to my head a little bit. I don’t know what it was, it’s not that I was proud that I had a whopping 12 followers. Steph has much more than I do. Maybe it wasn’t pride at all. Maybe it was just a little boredom throughout the day mixed with a direct feed from my life to the phones of my friends. Maybe it game me a sense of empowerment, I don’t know, but something about how I used it doesn’t sit right with me and it has revealed a bad flaw in the way I view my relationship with my friends.

I updated my twitter a lot. I would do it before class at school, on my way driving to places, in the library while I was reading a book, several times while I was at work, and in many more of each day’s circumstances. Like I said, a lot of it probably had to do with simple boredom. Sometimes some older “tweeters” would get a little upset because the younger “tweeters” were updating their twitters so often that the older “tweeters” got tired of their phones going off every 30 seconds with new text messages. This is understandable, but when some of the older “tweeters” (let’s just call them Aimee Gilbert and Stephanie Benton) sounded off via twitter about a younger “tweeter” (we’ll just call her Kaylea Roberts) updating too often, I spoke up by saying that I liked getting all their updates and I thought that everyone should update more often. It never annoyed me because I always liked it when I was in a boring lecture or at work doing some monotonous task and my phone would go off, telling me what a friend was up to or what they were thinking at the moment.

In this sense, I love twitter because when I go to work or school I still feel in a sense connected to my closest friends. I don’t feel like I’m going off into some foreign world all by myself. I can at least send and receive messages so that I know someone is still out there.

But the negative part of this, the part that Kevin hit on in his post, is that I let twitter fuel my narcissistic tendencies. This is one reason I like to read a lot, because it never hurts to get someone else’s take on things. I used twitter as a sort of “bully pulpit,” sending my opinions about Christian radio or politics or just anything out to my followers. I did this often in the heat of the moment right as the thoughts and emotions came up in my mind, and I think it put off my friends a little bit. Being able to send out little 140 character messages completely about me made it easy for me to slip into a selfish tendency to view myself as the center of the universe and be less considerate of others. It wasn’t like I didn’t care about anybody else, but it led me to take up a “me first” attitude that is never good.

Since I realized what I was doing, I feel like I have grown up a little bit. I’ve taken a step back, examined myself, and looked at what I was doing closely. Now, when I update my twitter I try to think about the people who are receiving my updates and not just the “me, me, me” attitude that I take up all too easily. I try to include them somehow, and sometimes I don’t update at all but rather text one of them. Truth is, it’s so much better that way. I realized that for a while that in my own little world I was looking at my friends as fans or followers and not friends at all, which is scary. In a sense, I placed myself above them, and I shouldn’t have done that.

Of course, half the time I was still just a bored guy with 5 hours left to go in his shift, or a bored guy in a library who missed his friends and would like to send out some sort of something to communicate, or somebody with a great joke or quote and nobody to tell.

Also, nothing beats being able to hijack someone else’s phone and update their twitter for them. There is just something satisfying about letting another person’s followers know that said person is:

“cannibalizing children”

“taking a dump in the yard”

“gay”

"in love with Chris Lombardo"

“eating baby fetuses and drinking embryo juice”

“eating zombie brains”

“pregnant”

And finally, my favorite…

“pooping in the turlet”

If you know somebody who has a twitter, never miss an opportunity to steal their phone and use it to completely ruin their life. You won't regret it.