Hello my blogger friends. This is blog post number one-hundred.
Josh - As promised you are thanked first. A little over a year ago you told me to create a blog, so I did. You told me write about whatever, so I did. You still influence this blog today (if you notice I now have labels for post). Thanks for showing me the ropes, the styles, the buttons to push, the gadgets to add. You seemed to have created a little community for all of us here and I really like that. Thanks for everything.
Gabby - I've only met you once but before that you were probably my first blogger friend turned facebook friend turned twitter friend which I don't think will ever happen to me again. I would write more but you switched to Wordpress so I won't go on.
Mom, Dad - I remember emailing you telling you I had started one of these blog things and from then on I've had nothing but support from you. Thanks.
Anonymous - You left a comment on a post which is pretty cool even if you are someone I know but I like the mysteriousness. Either way, I appreciate it.
Carolyn - My fellow hippie Baylor friend. I always appreciated you spilling your Monster that day. Always enjoyed the Dr. Pepper Float tradition with you and Amy, even though she never came.
All the original blogger people that Josh recruited - John, Blake, Matt
All the new blogger people - Lauren, Melanie, Jojo, Jessie, Matt(again), Ben(again)
Mr. Post - It may not seem like much but you told our class once that you're never too old to start enjoy reading books and I have to say you were very right. You started me with a little Donald Miller and it went on from there.
One of my friends told me the reoccurring theme of my blogs are "letting go and pressing on" which I guess is true. I tend to always look back at the past a lot which is sometimes burdensome but I've been told without a past, you have no future so I guess looking back has its pros and cons.
Another friend of mine says I say, "I guess" too much and that I should sound more sure of myself. It is true that I do say, "I guess" a lot but I would be lying if I said I was confident in myself.
I have learned the best way to write poems are to write it right away or else you forget it and then you get disappointed. For a couple of my poems I would have to get out of bed, turn on my computer, and then start typing before they left me. Even though I don't write a lot of poems and most of them are weird and pretty cliche I enjoy it every now and then.
So many thanks to everyone for being a part of this. Maybe someday I will be at two hundred but who really knows. Thanks again to all.
February 11, 2010
February 08, 2010
Seeing Human (The Naked Inside You)
I read this book called, "Sex God" and I liked it.
It always take awhile to get used to the Rob Bell style of writing but I like it because it is simple, yet profound. It continues to change my perspective on paragraph length.
Part of the book tells the story about American soldiers finding the concentration camps. It goes on to talk about how the people in the camps were treated as not human and that is why they become so miserable. Instead of being a unique creation of God they were treated as something else. Something that wasn't human.
It goes on to talk about how a large shipment of lipstick came to the camp and how everyone thought how random of an order that was but they took what they received and passed it out around the camp. The next day everyone seemed more joyful, running around with lipstick on their face smiling and laughing. It was the lipstick that made them remember that they were human, that they were something special instead of a number.
I feel like we do this a lot. Making humans less of a human. Giving labels to people just so we can define them in something when simply they are human. I was just doing this to people I watch on the television. People I don't even know but I am labeling them as something. I do not think I would treat the villain of a movie as well as the hero of a movie.
I got an email once telling me not to buy this certain kind of stamp because it had something to do with the Muslims. It told me to boycott from buying them because Muslims were involved in September 11th, and the Muslims this, the Muslims that.
Muslims are human.
Americans are human.
I was watching a television show about a bunch of lawyers. One lawyer, an Australian dude, likes another lawyer, a blond girl.
A male human like a female human.
Anyways, at first he didn't treat her as human but as some object. He tried to get her with chocolates and flowers, but she was still an object so that didn't work. Later he realizes from his ever wise guitar playing friend that if he really cares about her that he has to love the naked inside her. Her thoughts, feelings, etc..
He has to make her human.
In the end he writes her a poem set to music. Makes her human, not an object. He cares about the naked inside her and, I'm assuming, but she cares about the naked inside him.
Because we're human, and we should see others as human.
It always take awhile to get used to the Rob Bell style of writing but I like it because it is simple, yet profound. It continues to change my perspective on paragraph length.
Part of the book tells the story about American soldiers finding the concentration camps. It goes on to talk about how the people in the camps were treated as not human and that is why they become so miserable. Instead of being a unique creation of God they were treated as something else. Something that wasn't human.
It goes on to talk about how a large shipment of lipstick came to the camp and how everyone thought how random of an order that was but they took what they received and passed it out around the camp. The next day everyone seemed more joyful, running around with lipstick on their face smiling and laughing. It was the lipstick that made them remember that they were human, that they were something special instead of a number.
I feel like we do this a lot. Making humans less of a human. Giving labels to people just so we can define them in something when simply they are human. I was just doing this to people I watch on the television. People I don't even know but I am labeling them as something. I do not think I would treat the villain of a movie as well as the hero of a movie.
I got an email once telling me not to buy this certain kind of stamp because it had something to do with the Muslims. It told me to boycott from buying them because Muslims were involved in September 11th, and the Muslims this, the Muslims that.
Muslims are human.
Americans are human.
I was watching a television show about a bunch of lawyers. One lawyer, an Australian dude, likes another lawyer, a blond girl.
A male human like a female human.
Anyways, at first he didn't treat her as human but as some object. He tried to get her with chocolates and flowers, but she was still an object so that didn't work. Later he realizes from his ever wise guitar playing friend that if he really cares about her that he has to love the naked inside her. Her thoughts, feelings, etc..
He has to make her human.
In the end he writes her a poem set to music. Makes her human, not an object. He cares about the naked inside her and, I'm assuming, but she cares about the naked inside him.
Because we're human, and we should see others as human.
January 24, 2010
Headphones
It was on a icy January night where I listened to God. The roads were slick and I was driving home from a party and on the way back I decided to go a different route. I don't know why I did but I just had this small pecking inside me to go a different way home.
Sure enough, as I stopped at a stop sign there was a car on the side of the road with a guy inside. I turned the car around and opened my window to ask if he needed any help. I asked, "Do you need any help?" He saw me, turned on his car battery, opened his window and I asked again, "Do you need any help?"
He replied, "I got a tow truck coming here soon, but I appreciate you stopping."
I acknowledged. He put his window back up. I put my window back up. I drove away. He sat in his car waiting for a tow truck. I took a long U-turn around the block so it wouldn't be awkward if I drove by him again.
As I drove back home I saw a police man coming down the road, and then a little later as I was going through the round-a-bout I saw a tow truck entering the round-a-bout.
I didn't do much that night other than just pull a couple of U-turns but I do believe that God speaks to us like that. Little heart nudges. I always had imagined it like a loud drum but this was more like a soft whisper.
I had the choice to reject or accept. Say yes or no. Confirm or deny.
I might not have done much for the guy sitting in the car waiting for tow truck, but it did something to me even though I didn't have the intent to help myself.
Maybe God has some headphones we just haven't put on yet and maybe we just have to pray to find them. My friend started praying that God would show him ways to love people. They plugged into God, started listening for little heart nudges. It probably wasn't easy at first, but he would come to us with stories of the transforming power of love. I never saw the people he talked about in the stories, but you could tell that he had started to change. That something was different.
That the headphones were getting louder.
Sure enough, as I stopped at a stop sign there was a car on the side of the road with a guy inside. I turned the car around and opened my window to ask if he needed any help. I asked, "Do you need any help?" He saw me, turned on his car battery, opened his window and I asked again, "Do you need any help?"
He replied, "I got a tow truck coming here soon, but I appreciate you stopping."
I acknowledged. He put his window back up. I put my window back up. I drove away. He sat in his car waiting for a tow truck. I took a long U-turn around the block so it wouldn't be awkward if I drove by him again.
As I drove back home I saw a police man coming down the road, and then a little later as I was going through the round-a-bout I saw a tow truck entering the round-a-bout.
I didn't do much that night other than just pull a couple of U-turns but I do believe that God speaks to us like that. Little heart nudges. I always had imagined it like a loud drum but this was more like a soft whisper.
I had the choice to reject or accept. Say yes or no. Confirm or deny.
I might not have done much for the guy sitting in the car waiting for tow truck, but it did something to me even though I didn't have the intent to help myself.
Maybe God has some headphones we just haven't put on yet and maybe we just have to pray to find them. My friend started praying that God would show him ways to love people. They plugged into God, started listening for little heart nudges. It probably wasn't easy at first, but he would come to us with stories of the transforming power of love. I never saw the people he talked about in the stories, but you could tell that he had started to change. That something was different.
That the headphones were getting louder.
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