The Last Night

All summer Student Community prepared for their junior high camp. There theme was Day One.

Brillant. It was a great theme and was extremley well put together. It was probably one of the best themes that I have ever read and participated in.

The idea behind it is that today is Day one. Day one in encountering Christ, day one in understanding His love and grace, and day one in living the life that we as Christians are called to live, separatly and in a community.

I was sitting in a mentored ministry meeting and my advisor, Dr. J.K. Jones, asked us to turn to John 13. It is the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet. I have heard this story many times and have even experienced this kind of servanthood at highschool retreats, but J.K. came at this story from a different angle.

Jesus saw a need, and he met it. It was an extrodinary act that made ripples on His community, but in the moment it was a need that was met. On Christ's last night as a free person he met the needs of his closest friends, spirtually, emotionally, and physically. The community that he was leading wouldn't understand this kind of act until they understood the journey of Christ himself, but that was yet to come in the early church.

What will you do with your last night? J.K. Jones asked this question, and it stuck to me like jelly. I was so concerned with the beginnings of Christianity this summer that I suddenly forgot the urgency of the end.

So, what will you do with your last night?

Men and Women in the Church, Sarah Sumner

"I have been told that Christian women in Korea feel devastated socially if they turn thirty before marriage. Evidently they feel challenged, even in the church, to find their role. As I see it, the issue of their role is not the problem.

The problem, rather, lies in everyone around them who feels at a loss to knwo how to relate to them as single Christian women. My single female friends in the United States, expecially those over the age of forty who have never been married, constantly describe the same ordeal. Tehy feel many Christians do not know how to relate to them comfortably. Instead, people want to know "how they're coping" with their singleness and lack of motherhood.

In other words, they want to know how they're coping with there conventional rolelessness."

High matience Homeless

K-Shea and I went down to the city yesterday, to hang out and just enjoy each other's company. It was a blast. We ended up on the magnificant mile. It's amazing the different kind of people that are around that area. The mile has changed quite a bit since I have been there last. I tend to go into the city quite often but I'm never on Michigan Avenue(unless I'm seeing my sister at work).

Usually I'm in uptown.(Usually hanging out with my sister)

But there were crazy street performes one whom resembled Jonny Depp from the Secret Window. He was a vantriliquist and was pretty good. We also ventured into the world of human statues, who charged a dollar per picture, and we saw a puppet show on the street. When I encounterd the puppet show I was in a state of shock. Not often do you see such things.

So K-Shea and I enjoyed and gallavanted down this mile of merchandise, but we suddenley felt the urge for some substanance so we went to Giordono's. In the pizza arena Giordono's is high up in having the best deep dish pizza ever. We had fellowship and talked of many things while scarfing down a small deep dish sausage and mushroom pizza.

We ened up having two pieces of pizza left, so we figured if we saw someone on the stree that looks hungry or that was holding a sign that says "I need food, starving, Hungry!" we would just give our pizza to them.

We started south on the magnificant mile after dinner and ran into someone who had a sign that stated "Hungry, Please feed!" I asked if this person if she wanted our pizza and she replied with a quick and sharp no while continuing to stare off into space.

As we walked away, I felt kind of offended. I didn't realize that the homeless people on the magnificant mile were so high mantience. I just assumed that if someone was holding a sign that said hungy, that person would be grateful for a couple of deep dish sausage and mushroom peices of pizza.

I guess we all know where assuming takes us.

The Rulebook

"The people who know the rule book are the only ones going by it"

I heard this on a television show advertisment. Some new cop show that they are coming out with. The first thing that the ad states is, in a deep advertising voice of course "There is the cop who follows the rules, and then there is the professional who have thrown them out." Then the top quote follows. Now, yes it seems extremley cheesy and the whole basis of the show has been done and redone but I do like that quote.

The idea that the only people who truly follow the rules are the ones that know the rules. I can relate this to Christianity by parralleling 'Christians' and 'nonChristians'. By doing this I am pointing out that Christians arn't tolerate enough. The reality is that Christians follow a certian code and a certain rule book and we shouldn't judge other people by our moral stadards and expectations.

But I kind of want to hit on a different angle. What if we redirected and realized that the revolutionaries of this world consist of two kinds of people.

1.) People who know guidelines and rules and stick to them in an effort to create a dictonomy of harmony in their environments.
2.) People who know the guidelines and the rules so well that they either do one of two things; they learn how to manipulate them to there advantage, or they revamp them and they turn them into priniciples of their lives.

Principles are not concrete and cannot be broken.

So all in all I think that the first line stated in this blog is irrelevant, because everyone lives by their own moral standard. There is not one being on this earth who lives apart from themselves. Everyone is following someone or someone's ruling. I just think that there can be revolution in that. I think that men and women can grasp the ideals and morals of the universe and create something that is very much the same but still causes goose bumps to crawl up your friends arms.

One is never enough

I was working today, as usual, and there was a kid that started complaining that one frozen hot chocolate is not enough and will never be enough.

I have felt like that all summer. I have learned that people spend to much money and have the total mentality that one is never enough. I have been working in a coffee shop all summer, and the money that students carry around is disgusting.

My regulars blow my mind, because in reality, they come in three or four times a week and spend four or five dollars everyday on their coffee.

That is crazy to me. I know and understand that I spent and can spend that much money in one setting, but it still frustrates me.

I think that seeing how much money people spend on coffee shows what kind of lifestyle they lead in their lives.

And then, I could be wrong.

Mel's Mistake

I am a huge fan of Mel Gibson. I love most of the movies that he makes and I think that he is a cool guy.

Mel messed up on monday by getting drunk, getting into a car, and then making anti-semetic remarks to a couple of officers who pulled him over.

Mel has recently apologized to everyone involved and then some.

Now I do think that he was totally in the wrong for getting drunk in public and getting into a car and then making racist remarks, because he is in the public scene. He is a Christian who has stood up for his beliefs, and that makes him automatically in the spotlight. When you are in the spotlight for standing up for something you better live that way.

However, I do not agree with the way that Hollywood is handling the situation. People are freaking out. Making statments like "I'm never going to work with him or see any of his movies."

This is the orginization that has had more deaths involving drugs, more scandal, more sex, more racial problems, and more money then any other orginization in the nation.

If you don't agree with Mel's actions and words, stop putting racial sterotypes in your movies.
Producers, writers, and directors will make the argument that, racisim is a reality of life, and that is true but if we keep sterotyping races than racism is not going to stop.

I know people screw up and when they are drunk they lose control of their words and actions. Mel Gibson has no excuse for his behavior but Hollywood has no excuse for their's either.

The reason that they are standing up against him is because he has been standing up for his beliefs, for the past couple of years.

Oh and the reality of the Passion which apparantly is the anti-semetic movie that Mel came out with is that the Jews historically sent Jesus to be cruxified. Like it or not that is the reality of the situation. That is not anti-semetic, that's the truth.