- I have one paper, two tests, and two vocab quizzes left for school. I'm almost done with the Spring semester of 2010. Classes this semester are: Intro to World Religions, Exegesis of 1 Corinthians, and Exegesis of Joshua. Yeah... I took two exegesis classes in one semester. Call me crazy.
- I'm still working at Starbucks. It's a good job. I'm transferring back for the summer to Tulsa, so we'll see how that works out. Speaking of Tulsa...
- I'm going to be doing a ministry internship at Saturday Night Community Church with my good friend, Preston Sharpe. I'm really looking forward to working with all those great people again. Also, I haven't found a church in Wilmore that scratched the itch quite like SNCC does. Can you tell that I'm excited?
- I've begun to shave with a straight razor. This has been nothing short of wicked awesome. For all you "men" who pride yourselves on your "manly" beards, I ask of you... Which is more masculine, being lazy and letting yourself go or shaving with something that you could also use to hijack a 727? Gillette, Schick, and all the rest... Stand down. Take your ridiculously overpriced cartridges and begone. Electric shavers, you once may have been the future, but you belong in the forgotten past as far as I'm concerned. I have found a better way. And this is it.
- I went and watched Angels & Airwaves do a show in Cincinnati this past weekend. Great show. Enjoyed it very much. Thought more than once that Tom DeLonge sounds like Spencer Sharpe when performing live.
- Umm... That's about it.
I will engage a couple of thoughts, though. I don't have any real arguments or points I'm trying to make here; these have just been floating around in my mind lately.
- What's up with negativity? Across the Twitterverse and Facespace, people are griping about something or other. I've also seen that several of my acquaintances have lives that are characterized by negativity, both on the interwebs and in the real. I know, I know... Life is tough. It's easy for me to point this out; my life is amazingly simple compared with those of other people. However, I've also seen people who have had the $h!t kicked out of them show more joy more often than I thought possible. What gives? Christ came that we may have life... And we are not like those who do not have hope! The joy of the Lord is our strength! There was a time in my life when I would have been content to wallow and mope; I probably would have sent a sneer in the general direction of those who said what I just did. Sometimes, I'm tempted to slip back to that place. It certainly would be easy... But instead of focusing on the thousands of ways that life is difficult, let us rejoice in the one whose yoke is easy; and when it feels heavy, let us be thankful for the community of faith that carries us when we can't crawl. Debbie Downer, don't you come knocking at my door.
- This semester, I had the singular experience of visiting a Hindu temple and watching their service. I remember sitting in the corner, trying to take everything in, humbly trying to find God in that place. I'd recommend that you visit a gathering of another faith... Make you think. Anyway, earlier in the semester, I was visiting a nondenominational storefront church... Until I found out they were Baptists. Then I wouldn't give them the time of day. (I just don't like Baptists... This part of me is far from sanctified.) And this thought just hit me over the past couple of days: Why can I enter a Hindu temple and place myself in a position of humility there and then go to a Baptist church and reject their community when I most certainly have more in common with the Baptists than the Hindus? Religious pride... It even goes across denominations. Something really got me; Earth Day fell on a Thursday this year. The big joke was that "Today is Earth Day; or, as conservative evangelicals call it, 'Thursday.'" (Maybe it wasn't conservative evangelicals... Might have been something else. Fill in the blank. The idea will stand.) So everyone had a good chuckle at that. But it was a slap in the face. That doesn't promote unity! I'm sure conservative evangelicals have a lot to say about the world (and they do say it, no mistake...), but geez. This came from many of my friends who pride themselves at transcending a lot of these divisions of faith and people who see themselves as forging ahead and bringing unity to God's church... This attitude just doesn't fit. Who says a conservative evangelical isn't green by default? Who says that I can't find God underneath a Baptist steeple? Do I get so hung up on my own position of faith and semantics that I find myself judging other people and criticizing them for the dumbest of things? I know I do... And I wish I didn't.
That's all I've got for now. Tulsa, I'll see you in 20 days.
